W  !••! 


v-*.s     SIi:"R!;2,S      OF 
/.'»  CRT.    RKADHRS 


BEYOND  THE 
PASTURE  BARS 

BY  DALLAS    LORE    SHARP 


-• 


SCHOOL 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 


BEYOND  THE 
PASTURE  BARS 


BY 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 

Author  of  "Wild  Life  Near  Home," 
"A  Watcher  in  the  Woods." 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 

BRUCE  HORSFALL 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
THE  CENTUBY  Co. 


.5  5"3 


TO 

MY  BIG  BROTHER  JOE 

WHO  USED  TO  "LET"  ME  GO  WITH    HIM 

INTO  THE  WOODS 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 3 

II     THE  CRAZY  FLICKER 13 

III  THE   WILD   GEESE 25 

IV  THE  WOOD-PUSSY      ..........     37 

V     A  HOUSE  OF  MANY  DOORS .      .     47 

VI     WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FARM- YARD 57 

VII     A  SONG  OF  THE  WINTER  WOODS 71 

VIII     ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL 83 

IX  THE  DANCE  IN  THE  ALDER  SWALE       ...      .     99 

X  CHICKAREE  THE  SCOLD     .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .111 

XI  A  LESSON  IN  NATURAL  HISTORY     .....    125 

XII     CALICO  AND  THE  KITTENS 137 

SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS      .      .    149 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"Beyond  the  pasture  bars"     ....     Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Robin 3 

Folk   in   scales 4 

Folk  in  bare  skins 4 

Folk  in  fur 5 

Folk   in   shells 6 

Squirrel 9 

Bumble-bee 10 

What  a  glorious  hole  for  a  nest  there  must  be  in 

there! ,    -  .  16 

He  found  himself  inside  an  empty  barn     ...  19 

Housekeeping  for  the  geese  is  a  particularly  serious 

business 29 

There  .  .  .  was  a  family  of  seven  young  skunks     .  39 

They  all  followed  her .     .     .41 

Tall  black  cormorants,  great  foam-white  gulls     .      .  51 

The  tame  turkey-hen  is  notorious  for  stealing  her 

nest 62 

The  frozen  winter  fields 73 

Upland  and  lowland,  field  and  wood-lot     ...  75 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  dim  gray  twilight  of  the  winter     ....  78 

He  climbed  out  on  the  slanting  stake     .            .      .  86 

Pinky 89 

Woodthrush 106 

He  would  take  one  to  a  certain  bottom  limb     .      .  121 

He  eats  caterpillars 130 

She  often  found  her  two  out  among  the  trees     .      .  145 


BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 


BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 


CHAPTEK  I 


BEYOND   THE   PASTURE    BARS 


Y  pasture  bars  are  real  cedar 
rails  that  slide  through  old- 
fashioned  cedar  posts  at  the 
distant  corner  of  my  small  pas- 
ture. Whichever  way  I  go 
from  the  house  I  come  to  a  pair 
of  pasture  bars  that  need  only 
to  be  lowered,  and  I  am  in  the 
woods,  or  the  wide  hilly  fields. 
It  is  through  these  pasture  bars 
and  into  these  woods  and  fields 
that  you  are  now  to  go  with 


I  want  to  show  you  a  hundred  things  !  But  we 
shall  not  have  time  for  so  many.  Yet  there  are 
more  than  a  hundred  wild  birds  and  animals  liv- 

3 


4      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

ing  just  beyond  the  bars,  to  say  nothing  of  the 

insects  and  flowers. 
Inside  the  pasture 
bars,  here  on  the 
few  acres  of  my 
small  farm,  living 
on  my  land  with  me, 
Folk  in  scales  are  almost  a  hun- 

dred  wild  neighbors ! 

I  counted  them  up  the  other  day  and  found 
seventy-five  different  species.  There  were  thirty- 
six  different  kinds  of  birds,  the  feathered  folk; 
fourteen  kinds  of  folk  in  fur ;  ten  in  scales ;  ten  in 
bare  skins ;  and  five  in  shells — and  I  can  doubtless 
find  enough  others  of  all  these  sorts  to  make  a 
round  hundred  when  I  know  just  who  all  my  wild 
neighbors  are. 

And  besides  these  birds  and  beasts,  here  are  the 
white-faced  hornets  with  their  wonderful  paper 
house  in  the  apple  tree;  the  black  and  red  ants 
with  their  great  mound  on  the  hillside ;  the  wasps 
with  their  adobe  huts  on  the  rafters  in  the  barn; 
the  spiders  with  their 
hunting  nets ;  the  bees 
at  work  for  me  in  the 
hives  back  near  the  Folk 


*    , 


V 


Folk   in   fur 


BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS  7 

woods;  the  moths  and  butterflies,  the  orchestra 
of  crickets  and  grasshoppers;  the  beetles  and 
bugs!  What  a  world  of  wild  folk  lives  with  me 
on  both  sides  of  the  pasture  bars! 

But  you  cannot  come  to  know  them  all  in  one 
summer,  nor  in  one  book.  The  best  thing  that  this 
book  can  do,  perhaps,  is  to  let  down  the  bars  for 
you ;  or,  better  than  that,  to  tell  you  to  jump  them, 
and  then  to  show  you,  if  it  can,  how  to  see  and  to 
hear  and  to  know  the  wild  things  you  will  find  in 
the  fields  just  beyond  those  bars. 

Now  your  pasture  bars  may  be  some  iron  gate, 
swinging  into  an  old  city  cemetery,  or  into  a  fine 
city  park,  where  there  are  more  policemen  than 
any  other  kind  of  wild  animals,  and  where  you 
cannot  pick  the  flowers,  or  climb  the  trees,  or  even 
run  across  t'he  grass. 

Of  course  you  cannot  pick  the  flowers  in  a  city 
park ;  there  would  not  be  enough  to  go  round.  But 
you  can  sit  quietly  down  upon  a  bench  and  watch 
— the  birds  in  the  trees,  the  squirrels  on  the  grass, 
the  bees  and  insects  among  the  flowers.  And  in 
some  parks  you  can  do  what  I  cannot  do  here  in 
the  country — you  can  see  live  bears,  lions,  wolves 
and  other  great  beasts  from  the  wildest  parts  of 
the  world. 


8      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Another  thing  you  can  do  just  as  well  in  the 
city  park  as  in  the  country  pasture — you  can 
learn  how  to  sit  still,  look  sharp,  hear  accurately, 
and  to  ask  of  everything  that  comes  along  an  in- 
teresting question.  In  short,  you  can  learn  in  a 
city  park  the  simple  necessary  lessons  of  wood 
craft,  and  the  names  and  habits,  as  well,  of  a  num- 
ber of  the  common  animals,  birds,  trees,  insects 
and  flowers. 

Indeed,  a  city  park  in  the  spring  time,  when  the 
birds  are  migrating,  is  one  of  the  best  of  places 
to  study  and  name  them.  One  of  my  friends  by 
going  morning  after  morning  into  Lincoln  Park, 
Chicago,  saw  and  named  145  different  species  of 
birds.  And  he  says  in  his  book,  "Wild  Birds  in 
City  Parks,"  "During  the  migrations  of  the  birds 
city  dwellers  have  one  of  the  keenest  delights  of 
country  life  brought  to  their  very  doors,  because 
many  birds,  migrating  largely  at  night,  are  at- 
tracted by  the  lights  of  the  city  and  stop  off  in 
their  long  journey  to  feed,  so  that  a  city  park 
often  contains  a  greater  variety  of  feathered  vis- 
itors than  an  equal  area  in  the  country." 

So  iron  gate  or  cedar  rails,  it  is  possible  for 
every  one  of  us  to  find  some  spot  where  the  sky 
is  overhead,  and  the  grass  is  under  our  feet,  and 


Squirrel 


10      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

where,  amotag  the  trees  and  bushes,  robin  and 
squirrel  and  bumble-bee,  along  with  a  host  of 
other  wild  things,  are  living,  and  are  ready 
enough  to  be  watched. 

He  is  a  true  lover  of  the  out  of  doors  who  loves 
the  patch  of  sky  over  his  head,  the  wind  in  the 
trees  along  his  daily  path,  and  the  little  lives  that 
share  the  sunshine  and  rain  with  him  no  matter 
where  the  rain  and  sunshine  fall. 


Bumble-bee 


THE  CRAZY  FLICKER 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   CRAZY    FLICKER 

T  T  was  a  bright  spring  morning,  just  the  kind  of 
J-  a  morning  to  make  a  flicker  go  crazy,  or  a  boy 
or  a  girl  go  crazy,  for  that  matter.  The  sun  was 
shining,  the  maples  were  blooming,  the  black  birds 
were  gurgling,  the  bees  were  humming,  the  farm- 
ers were  plowing,  and  everything,  everywhere 
was  singing  or  laughing  or  capering  with  the  joy 
of  the  fresh  spring  day. 

As  for  me,  I  was  going  down  the  old  zig-zag 
lane  in  the  fields  doing  all  three  things  at  once — 
capering,  laughing,  singing;  while  the  crooked 
worm-fence,  zig-zagging  down  each  side  of  the  lane, 
seemed  singing,  laughing  and  capering  with  me 
till  it  was  in  danger  of  shaking  its  riders  off. 

13 


14      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Surely  somebody  besides  the  flicker  was  crazy, 
or  was  going  crazy! 

Just  then  old  Yarup,  the  flicker,  swung  over  my 
head  and  -galloped  on  across  the  fields  toward  a 
large  haybarn  that  had  lately  been  built  in  a 
near-by  field.  I  was  going  over  to  the  barn  also, 
but  was  still  some  distance  away,  when  Yarup 
landed  on  the  ridge-pole,  threw  up  his  head  yell- 
ing "icick-wick-wick,"  then  fell  to  on  that  ridge- 
pole with  his  bill  as  if  he  intended  to  split  the  roof 
into  kindling  wood. 

"Woop!"  he  seemed  to  say,  leaping  straight  up 
into  the  air  at  the  sound  of  the  hollow  boom  from 
within  the  empty  barn.  "Woop!  hear  the  bang!" 
and,  clean  out  of  his  wits,  he  came  down  on  the 
ridge-pole  yelling  "Kei-yer!  Kei-yer!"  at  all  the 
countryside  for  a  mile  around,  then  started  again 
to  splitting  kindling  as  if  the  world  had  to  be  set 
on  fire. 

No,  it  was  not  to  set  the  world  on  fire,  but  to 
wake  the  world  up,  that  he  was  pounding.  As  if 
the  whole  spring  world  was  not  wide  awake  al- 
ready! It  was  not  kindling  wood,  but  noise  that 
that  crazy  flicker  was  making — rattling,  banging, 
wanging  noise!  And  he  was  making  it  just  for 
the  fun  of  making  it,  yelling  to  hear  himself  yell, 


THE  CRAZY  FLICKER  15 

and  hammering  to  hear  himself  hammer  till  the 
big  barn  boomed  and  rumbled  like  a  mighty  bass 
drum. 

It  is  quite  likely,  however,  that  he  was  doing  it 
to  show  off,  to  attract  the  attention  of  Miss  Yarup 
or  High-hole,  or  Flicker,  or  whatever  name  she 
goes  by  in  your  dead  trees  and  telegraph  poles 
(she  has  thirty-six  different  names,  has  this 
flicker!).  I  am  sure  that  it  was  partly  for  her 
sake,  that  he  was  making  the  racket;  for  it  was 
high  time  he  had  a  family  and  a  house  under  way. 

I  think  the  thought  of  a  family  (flickers  always 
have  enormous  families!)  must  suddenly  have 
come  to  him  as  he  hammered  on  the  roof,  for  all 
at  once  he  darted  off,  and  around  to  the  end  of 
the  barn,  where  he  caught  hold  of  the  straight-up- 
and-down  boards  and,  bracing  himself  with  Ms 
spine-pointed  tail,  began  to  drill  a  hole. 

How  it  sounded!  Never  before  had  he  struck 
anything  with  such  a  ring  to  it.  What  a  glorious 
hole  for  a  nest  there  must  be  in  there!  Why,  if 
the  brood  should  happen  to  come  twenty  strong 
(which  was  not  past  hoping  for),  each  young 
flicker  could  have  a  bed  and  a  room  all  to  himself 
— a  condition  of  affairs  altogether  unheard  of, 
up  to  this  time,  in  flickerdom. 


16      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

How  he  managed  to  hang  on  to  those  smooth, 
perpendicular  boards,  even  though  propped  by 
his  sharp-pointed  tail  feathers,  I  could  not  see. 
There  was  nothing  but  flat  wall  to  hold  to.  Yet 
there  he  clung,  securely,  and  so  firmly  braced 
that  he  was  using  his  chisel-edged  beak  as  a  small, 
but  powerful,  electric  drill  to  bore  through  the 
new  inch-thick  boards. 


What    a    glorious    hole   for    a    nest    there   must   be    in   there  I 


THE  CRAZY  FLICKER  17 

I  wish  I  could  have  seen  the  expression  on  his 
face  and  read  his  thoughts  when  he  got  through 
and  found  himself  inside  an  empty  barn.  He 
must  have  been  the  most  amazed  and  mystified 
bird  in  the  region,  if  he  was  sane  enough  to  think 
at  all.  Instead  of  a  neat,  snug  cavity  sufficient 
to  turn  round  in,  he  had  bored  into  an  empty  hay- 
loft. Perhaps  an  English  sparrow  would  not 
have  been  daunted  at  the  prospect  of  filling  up  a 
liaymoiv  with  a  nest,  but  the  flicker  was. 

Or  else  he  was  not  house-hunting,  after  all,  but 
simply  a  crazy  flicker,  crazy  over  holes.  For  now 
his  madness  showed  itself.  Out  he  came,  hopped 
sidewise  across  a  few  boards,  tapped,  listened, 
.and  began  a  new  hole.  This,  of  course,  opened 
into  the  same  mammoth  cave.  What  of  it?  Not 
where  the  hole  opened,  but  the  boring  of  it ;  that 
was  the  thing.  So,  hopping  along  to  another 
seam,  he  must  have  gone  through  again.  And 
not  three  times  only.  Day  after  day  either  he 
or  the  other  flickers  in  the  neighborhood  kept  bor- 
ing away,  until  soon  the  barn  became  riddled 
with  holes  as  if  it  had  been  used  as  a  target  for 
cannon  practice,  shot  through  and  through. 

Crazy  over  holes!  At  least  that  is  the  way  it 
looked  to  me.  It  looked  even  worse  than  that  to 


18  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

my  neighbor  who  owned  the  barn.  He  did  not 
build  the  barn  for  holes.  He  built  it  for  hay. 
And  I  think  he  thought  the  one  sane  thing  that 
flickers  could  make  was  pot-pie! 

And  I  think  that  some  city  neighbors  of  mine 
thought  so  too,  when  another  crazy  flicker  took  to 
boring  holes  into  their  rain-pipes. 

Now  it  is  a  very  natural  thing  for  a  woodpecker 
to  peck  holes  in  wood  (the  flicker  belongs  to  the 
woodpecker  family,  you  know) — natural  I  should 
say  for  him  to  peck  holes  into  dead  and  hollow 
trees;  but  quite  unreasonable  to  drill  holes  into 
big  barns.  Still  barns  are  made  of  trees,  are 
built  of  wood,  and  are  hollow,  so  that  boring  into 
barns  may  not  be  very  unnatural  or  very  crazy 
after  all.  But  to  bore  into  galvanized  iron  rain- 
pipes — that  is  the  work  of  stark  madness;  and 
no  one  can  blame  the  people  who  owned  the  rain- 
pipes  for  thinking  so. 

What  it  was  that  drove  this  particular  flicker 
crazy  I  cannot  say,  unless,  perhaps,  it  was  noise. 
Certainly  drumming  for  hours  on  a  rain-pipe  is 
enough  to  drive  anything  crazy;  and  this  flicker 
for  hours  every  morning  banged  the  sounding 
pipes  as  if  it  were  the  Judgment-Day  and  he  was 
trying  to  wake  the  dead! 


He  found  himself  inside  an  empty  barn 


20  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

He  did  wake  up  everybody  for  a  block  around. 
Nobody  had  seen  a  flicker  in  the  neighborhood 
since  last  October  when  suddenly  the  early  March 
morning  was  startled  by  a  thunderous  rat-ta-tat- 
ta-tat  inside  of  a  big  galvanized-iron  chimney! 
The  people  in  their  beds  below  jumped  as  if  the 
roof  were  falling  in.  The  workmen  hurrying 
along  the  quiet  streets  halted  to  gaze  around  in 
wonder.  There  was  nothing  to  be  seen.  When 
rat-ta-tat-ta-tat — the  rattling,  ringing  roll  again, 
and  up  out  of  the  chimney  popped  a  flicker,  hav- 
ing a  very  fit  of  fun  over  this  new  drum ! 

Then  across  the  way,  on  the  top  of  a  neighbor- 
ing house,  he  spied  another,  larger  drum,  and  gal- 
loped over  there.  It  was  a  big  ventilator.  He 
hit  it,  and  it  boomed.  Catching  his  toes  around 
an  iron  hoop  that  circled  it,  he  began  to  beat  a 
roll  to  wake  the  town. 

The  mystery  is  that  his  bill  did  not  fly  into 
splinters.  But  it  did  not.  The  sound,  however, 
went  to  his  head.  He  got  mad  with  the  noise, 
crazier  and  crazier  over  galvanized  iron,  until  he 
went  to  boring  holes  into  the  rain-pipe. 

At  the  first  it  was  love,  doubtless,  that  ailed 
him;  he  was  drumming  up  a  bride.  But  that 
soon  changed.  He  forgot  all  about  brides,  and 


THE  CRAZY  FLICKER  21 

fell  in  love  with  drumming.  Nor  is  he  the  first 
male  bird  I  have  known  thus  in  love.  In  the 
island  park  at  Detroit,  Michigan,  I  knew  a  red- 
headed woodpecker  to  serenade  himself  long  after 
mating  season — up,  in  fact,  to  September, 
the  time  I  left  the  park  woods.  He  would  get  in- 
side the  zinc  ventilator  of  the  clubhouse  and  make 
the  island  ring. 

But  let  us  get  back  to  those  rain-pipes.  It 
was  several  days  after  his  arrival  before  the  peo- 
ple knew  the  damage  this  crazy  flicker  was  doing. 
At  first  they  had  looked  upon  him  as  a  harmless, 
ardent  lover  who  preferred  to  serenade  his  lady 
upon  a  sounding  iron  chimney  rather  than  to 
twang  a  dead  limb  for  his  guitar.  They  were 
amused.  Everybody  loves  a  lover — until  he  be- 
gins to  bore  holes  into  rain-pipes. 

And  that  is  what  this  lover  soon  began  to  do. 
Instead  of  a  lover  the  bird  was  a  lunatic,  for  what 
was  seen  one  morning  but  that  bird  high  up  under 
the  corner  of  the  roof,  clutching  a  small  bracket 
in  the  side  of  the  house,  and  drilling  a  hole 
through  the  rain-pipe! 

He  was  hammering  like  a  tinsmith,  and  al- 
ready, when  discovered,  had  cut  a  hole  half  as 
big  as  one's  fist.  He  had  not  tried  to  drill  be- 


22  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

fore;  he  had  been  happy  merely  hammering. 
Something,  however,  either  the  size,  or  shape,  or 
ring  of  the  pipe,  suggested  "holes"  to  his  wild 
wits,  and  right  through  the  pipe  he  had  gone. 

It  was  not  grubs  that  he  was  after.  Maybe 
somewhere  in  his  mad  head  was  the  remote  no- 
tion of  a  nest.  Where,  however,  could  he  have 
found  a  mate  as  crazy  as  himself — crazy  enough 
to  have  built  in  such  a  place  ?  Young  Mrs.  Flicker 
is  an  exceedingly  spoony  bride;  love  in  a  cottage 
is  just  to  her  liking;  but  I  have  yet  to  see  one  who 
would  go  to  the  length  of  a  rain-pipe. 

The  crazy  bird  was  finally  scared  away,  leaving 
several  indignant  citizens  behind,  who  heartily 
wished  they  had  taken  the  law  into  their  own 
hands  when  the  bird  began  to  show  his  tendency 
to  attack  galvanized  iron  and  tin. 


THE  WILD  GEESE 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   WILD   GEESE 

IF  you  have  always  lived  in  a  large  city,  then 
doubtless  you  have  never  heard  the  honkers. 
They  pass  over  the  cities,  as  they  pass  over  the 
country,  but  the  noise  of  the  city,  even  at  dead  of 
night,  would  prevent  your  hearing  the  honk,  honk, 
honk  as  the  flock  of  wild  geese  steers  its  way  un- 
der the  stars  and  clouds  high  over  the  city  roofs. 

Sometime  you  must  hear  them  going  over. 
Some  starry  night  in  November  you  may  be  cross- 
ing a  wide  pasture  field  alone  when  all  is  silent 
about  you.  The  frosts  have  hushed  the  grass- 
hoppers and  crickets  and  katydids,  the  field  birds 
have  gone  south,  the  rattling  farm  wagons  on  the 
distant  roads  have  all  passed  by,  the  wind  is  down, 
and  the  fields  all  around  are  still. 

Suddenly,  out  of  the  dark,  faraway  blue  toward 
the  polar  star,  sounds  a  faint  clanging,  clamorous 
sound  as  of  several  persons  shouting,  as  of  sev- 

25 


26  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

eral  bells  ringing  in  confusion,  growing  louder, 
clearer,  more  ringing,  clanging,  clangorous,  until 
down  from  the  stars  overhead  falls  the  round 
trumpet  call  of  honk  honk  honk  honk,  as  the  flock 
with  measured  wing  tread,  speeds  along  its  star- 
lit highway  from  the  arctic  toward  the  tropic  zone. 

You  stand  in  your  tracks,  your  face  turned 
toward  the  stars,  your  breath  held,  your  eyes  un- 
seeing, your  ears  straining  to  catch  the  thrilling 
message  that  seems  calling  from  star  to  star. 

Out  of  the  north  it  comes,  and  you  hear  the  cry 
of  the  north— the  howl  of  winds,  the  crash  of  floes, 
the  thunder  of  splitting  icebergs;  then  on  into 
the  south  it  goes,  this  thrilling  call,  and  you  hear 
the  voice  of  the  south — the  whisper  of  winds 
among  the  reeds,  the  lap  of  waves  on  the  shore, 
the  song  of  birds,  the  hum  of  bees,  the  breathing 
of  the  jessamin  and  orange  blossoms. 

The  strange  cloud-call  comes  and  goes  and 
leaves  you  listening  to  two  worlds,  the  boreal  world 
and  the  tropic  world.  The  call  comes  and  goes 
and  leaves  you  with  a  wild,  wild  thrill  in  your 
heart,  and  a  wild,  wilcl  desire  for  something — for 
wings,  it  seems,  so  that  you  too  may  cross  the 
cloudy  highway  that  swings  through  the  stars 
around  the  world. 


THE  WILD  GEESE  27 

You  hear  them  going  south  in  the  fall.  Then 
you  may  hear  them  going  north  in  the  spring. 
For  the  wild  geese,  like  so  many  other  birds  that 
breed  in  the  north,  are  migratory;  that  is  they  go 
south  at  the  approach  of  cold  weather  and  north 
again  when  warm  weather  comes  on. 

In  February  the  Canada  geese  are  scattered 
along  the  margins  of  our  southern  lakes  and  riv- 
ers, already  preparing  for  their  flight  northward 
to  Canada,  Labrador,  and  Alaska.  Early  spring 
finds  them  back  in  their  northern  breeding-haunts 
with  nests  well  under  way.  Then,  by  September, 
the  long  return  flight  begins,  the  flocks  passing 
over  the  Middle  States  for  a  month  or  more,  but 
all  reaching  the  warm  shores  of  the  South  by  the 
time  our  northern  waters  are  closed  with  ice. 

The  journey  in  the  spring  is  a  honeymoon  trip; 
in  the  fall  it  is  a  family  excursion.  The  wild 
geese  mate  for  life.  Nothing  of  the  turkey  gob- 
bler's jealousy  and  viciousness  is  shown  by  the 
wild  gander ;  the  female  goose  does  not  steal  away 
from  her  mate  to  make  her  nest.  She  and  he  are 
"engaged"  before  the  long  spring  flight  begins. 
They  sail  away  in  company  with  other  like  lovers 
to  wed  and  go  off  together  as  soon  as  they  reach 
the  northern  nesting-meadows. 


28  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Housekeeping  for  the  geese  is  a  particularly 
serious  business.  The  gander  takes  his  full  share 
of  the  trouble.  He  never  shirks  nor  leaves  his 
mate.  Day  and  night  he  stands  on  duty,  guard- 
ing the  mother  and  the  nest — with  his  life  if  need 
be— against  all  enemies.  He  even  helps  hatch 
the  eggs,  which  is  being  faithful  indeed. 

The  nest  is  a  collection  of  driftweed  and  sticks 
lined  with  down,  and  placed,  usually,  on  the 
ground  in  a  marsh  or  meadow.  Occasionally  it 
is  upon  a  stump,  or  even  up  in  some  old  fish- 
hawk's  nest  on  the  top  of  a  tree. 

As  soon  as  the  goslings  hatch  they  take  to  the 
water,  and  then  life  for  goose  and  gander  grows 
tangled  fast  with  trouble. 

I  once  watched  a  pair  of  geese  in  captivity,  as 
they  were  led  about  by  their  one  small  gosling — 
their  only  one  left  out  of  a  brood  of  seven.  From 
sunrise  to  nightfall  their  anxious  day  was  spent 
trying  to  keep  up  with  Master  Gosling.  He  went 
whither  he  would ;  and  they  side  by  side  waddled 
along  behind,  cautioning,  chiding  and  complain- 
ing. So  hurried  were  they  that  there  was  no  time 
to  snatch  a  blade  of  grass  or  a  billful  of  water,  as 
the  troublesome  infant  straddled  up  and  down  his 
backyard  world. 


THE  WILD  GEESE 


29 


|      It  is  well  along  in  August  before  the  young  are 

/  able  to  fly.     All  this  time  the  parents  have  cared 

for  them.    They  will  continue  to  keep  them  to- 


Housekeeping  for  the  geese  is  a  particularly  serious  business 

gether  as  a  family  during  the  southern  flight  and 
on  until  the  next  spring. 
No  phase  of  the  life  of  these  great  birds  is  so 


30      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

pleasing  as  the  thought  of  this  family  life — gan- 
der, goose,  and  goslings  a  united  family  even 
while  mingling  with  others  as  part  of  some  large 
flock.  Every  wedge  of  wild  geese  that  flies  trum- 
peting overhead  in  the  autumn  is  either  a  family, 
or  a  neighborhood  of  families,  led  by  some  strong 
old  gander. 

The  great  event  in  the  goose  calendar  is  this 
autumn  flight.  The  life  of  all  the  rest  of  the  year 
seems  to  be  a  getting  ready  for  this.  They  must 
fly  south  in  order  to  find  food  and  to'  escape  the 
deadly  cold,  but  they  must  take  the  flight  because 
of  its  own  sake  now,  for  it  has  become  a  fever  in 
their  bones. 

For  weeks  previous  to  the  departure,  restless- 
ness and  strange  desires  possess  the  birds.  It  is 
the  flight-fever,  the  fever  for  a  flight  a  mile  high, 
for  a  thousand  miles,  past  the  snowy  landscapes 
to  a  new  green  world! 

The  love  of  it  is  far  more  than  the  desire  for 
food.  Next  to  the  need  of  mate  and  offspring 
is  the  need  for  this  flight.  It  is  not  a  desire  of 
the  flesh,  but  of  the  spirit.  Food  does  not  fail 
in  the  farm-yard;  yet  the  tame  Canada  geese, 
when  the  nights  grow  crisp  and  the  wild  flocks  go 
honking  over,  will  scream  and  run  and  flap  their 


THE  WILD  GEESE  31 

crippled  wings  with  the  same  wild  longing  to  fly 
away — high  and  far  and  long  into  the  air. 

It  is  little  that  most  of  us  in  the  middle  states 
know  of  the  wild  geese  besides  this  passing.  But 
who  has  not  seen  the  wonderful  wedge,  like  a  har- 
row moving  across  the  sky,  or  the  long  file,  like  a 
strange  many-oared  racing  shell,  swimming  the 
clouds  I  Who  has  not  heard  the  thrilling  trumpet- 
call  out  of  the  star-depths  of  the  silent  autumn 
night  ? 

Yes,  even  in  the  heart  of  a  vast  city  I  have 
awakened  at  the  cloud-echoed  cry,  far  off,  weird, 
and  haunting. 

High  and  swift  as  they  move,  their  flight  is  still 
a  long  and  dangerous  one.  For  the  bird  is  flesh 
and  such  speed  rapidly  exhausts  him.  His  wings 
must  rest.  The  flier  must  have  food.  And 
awaiting  him  on  the  earth  is  a  line  of  enemies  as 
long  and  as  continuous  as  his  journey. 

Fogs  obscure  the  way;  storms  hinder;  noises 
confuse ;  and  often,  most  dangerous  of  all,  across 
the  brittle,  bracing  air  of  the  course  blows  a  thick, 
warm  wind  that  sends  the  whole  flock  reeling  and 
sagging  exhausted  to  the  earth.  Hundreds  of 
geese  one  day,  overcome  by  a  sudden  heat-wave, 
dropped  upon  a  small  pond  back  of  my  home,  and 


32  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

when  the  village  turned  out  to  the  slaughter,  the 
poor  things  even  scattered  to  the  neighboring 
fields,  too  weak  and  heavy  to  rise  higher  than  the 
tree-tops. 

There  is  not  a  single  event  in  all  the  year  of 
the  fields  that  I  would  not  sooner  forego  than  the 
sight  and  sound  of  the  flying  geese.  How  it  takes 
hold  of  the  imagination!  There  is  no  vivider 
passage  in  all  of  Audubon  than  his  description  of 
the  flight: 

"As  each  successive  night  the  hoar-frosts  cover 
the  country,  and  the  streams  are  closed  over  by 
the  ice,  the  family  joins  that  in  their  neighbor- 
hood, which  is  also  joined  by  others.  At  length 
they  espy  the  advance  of  a  snow-storm,  when 
the  ganders  with  one  accord  sound  the  order  for 
their  departure. 

"After  many  wide  circlings,  the  flock  has  risen 
high  in  the  thin  air,  and  an  hour  or  more  is  spent 
in  teaching  the  young  the  order  in  which  they  are 
to  move.  But  now  the  host  has  been  marshaled, 
and  off  it  starts.  The  old  males  advance  in  front, 
the  females  follow,  the  young  come  in  succession 
according  to  their  strength,  the  weakest  forming 
the  rear.  Should  one  feel  fatigued,  his  position 
is  changed  in  the  ranks,  and  he  assumes  a  place 


THE  WILD  GEESE  33 

in  the  wake  of  another,  who  cleaves  the  air  before 
him;  perhaps  the  parent  bird  flies  for  a  while  by 
his  side  to  encourage  him." 

What  meaning,  and  yet  what  mystery,  that  line 
of  winging  geese  has  for  us  when  we  remember 
all  of  this ! 

I  want  you  to  hear  them  going  over  this  fall, 
and  again  and  again  as  the  autumns  come  and  go. 
Then  I  want  you  to  learn  by  heart  the  whole  of 
this  beautiful  poem  by  William  Cullen  Bryant, 
so  that  every  time  you  hear  the  honking  of  the 
wild  geese  you  can  repeat  these  lines : 

TO   A   WATERFOWL 

Whither,   midst  falling  dew, 

While  glow  the  heavens   with  the  last  steps  of  day, 
Far,   through  their  rosy  depths,   dost  thou  pursue 

Thy  solitary  way  ? 

Vainly   the   fowler's   eye 

Might   mark  thy   distant  flight  to  do  thee   wrong, 
As,    darkly   seen   against   the   crimson  sky, 

Thy   figure   floats   along. 

Seek'st  thou  the  plashy  brink 
Of  weedy  lake  or  marge  of  river  wide, 
Or  where  the  rocking  billows  rise   and  sink 

On   the  chafed  ocean-side? 


There  is  a  Power  whose  care 
Teaches  thy   way    along  that  pathless  coast — 
The   desert  and   illimitable   air — 

Lone  wandering,   but   not  lost. 


34  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

All  day   thy  wings  have  fanned, 
At  that  far  height,   the   cold,   thin  atmosphere, 
Yet  stoop  not,  weary,  to  the  welcome  land, 

Though  the  dark  night  is  near. 


And  soon  that   toil   shall  end; 
Soon  shalt  thou  find  a  summer  home,   and  rest, 
And  scream  among  thy   fellows;   reeds  shall  bend, 

Soon,   o'er  thy  sheltered  nest. 

Thou  'rt  gone,  the  abyss  of  heaven 
Hath  swallowed  up  thy  form ;  yet  on  my  heart 
Deeply  has  sunk  the  lesson  thou  hast  given, 

And   shall   not  soon  depart. 

He  who.   from   zone   to  zone, 

Guides   through   the   boundless    sky   thy   certain    flight, 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone, 

Will  lead  my  steps  aright. 


THE  WOOD-PUSSY 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    WOOD-PUSSY 

LATE  one  afternoon  I  was  reading  by  the  side 
of  a  little  ravine  on  an  island  in  Casco  Bay. 
The  sharp,  rocky  walls  of  the  ravine  were  shaded 
by  scrub  trees  and  overhung  with  dewberry  vines. 
The  tide  was  ebbing,  and  presently  the  faint 
swash  of  the  waves  on  the  rocky  shore  was  broken 
by  a  stir  among  the  dried  leaves  far  down  be- 
low me. 

Creeping  cautiously  to  the  edge,  I  looked  down, 
and  there,  in  a  little  door-yard  of  their  own,  I  saw 
a  family  of  seven  young  skunks. 

They  were  about  three  weeks  old,  and  were 
playing  some  kind  of  a  rough-and-tumble  game, 
just  like  kittens.  Funny  little  bunches  of  black 
and  white  they  were,  with  sharp-pointed  noses, 
beady  black  eyes,  and  very  large  tails.  Their 
color  was  jet  black,  except  for  white  tips  to  their 
tails,  and  a  pure  white  mark  beginning  on  the 
tops  of  their  heads  and  dividing  down  their  sides 
like  the  letter  V. 

37 


38  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Not  one  of  them  had  seen  that  I  was  watching 
them,  and  so  their  play  went  on.  I  said  they  were 
playing  like  kittens.  No,  not  like  kittens,  but  like 
little  stuffed  Teddy  bears,  or  wabbly  little  lambs 
on  straw  legs  or  wooden  legs.  Only  the  baby 
skunks  did  not  seem  to  have  legs  at  all,  so  sawed- 
off  and  stubby  were  they,  so  fat  and  round  were 
their  little  humpty-dumpty  bodies.  They  fell  over 
the  brier-vines ;  they  fell  over  the  stones ;  they  fell 
over  each  other ;  they  fell  over  their  paws ;  they  fell 
over  their  very  shadows  it  seemed.  Their  only 
way  of  getting  up  was  by  tumbling  down;  and  if 
they  wanted  to  go  to  this  spot  or  that  their  surest, 
quickest  way  was  just  to  upset  and  tumble  there. 

But  it  was  real  play,  as  real  play  as  your  prison- 
ers' base  or  duck-on-davy.  Yet  it  differed  from 
your  play  because  it  was  silent.  Suppose  you  all  go 
out  at  recess  and  try  a  game  of  hocky  or  wood-tag 
without  making  a  single  sound.  With  lips  shut, 
and  on  your  toes,  try  to  scurry  about,  your  eyes 
keen  to  watch  for  something  that  is  going  to  gob- 
ble you  up;  your  ears  keen  to  hear  him  coming. 
Suddenly  some  one  holds  up  a  warning  finger,  and 
instantly  you  dive  in  the  schoolhouse  or  " freeze" 
in  your  tracks.  Do  you  think  you  could  do  it  I 

Think  of  having  to  play  without  any  noise! 


There  .   .  .  was  a  family  of  seven  young  skunks 


40  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Why,  it  would  be  almost  as  bad  as  trying  to 
breathe  without  breathing,  would  it  not!  Yet 
that  is  the  way  wild  animals  have  been  taught  to 
play — on  their  soft  little  tip-toes,  mouths  shut, 
but  eyes  and  ears  wide  open,  and  every  muscle 
ready  instantly  for  a  dive  into  their  holes. 

And  that  is  the  way  these  baby  skunks  were 
playing.  There  was  a  faint  stirring  of  dead 
leaves,  and  now  and  then  a  faint  little  hiss  of  an- 
ger. And  once,  when  one  of  the  little  rolly-pollies 
got  a  bump  that  hurt  him,  he  got  very  angry,  and 
there  was  a  fuss  in  a  twinkling. 

He  stamped  his  fore  feet,  showed  his  little  milk 
teeth,  humped  up  his  back  and  turned  both  ends 
of  his  tiny  body,  like  a  pinched  wasp,  toward 
every  one  of  his  brothers  that  came  near  him. 
They  all  knew  what  that  peculiar  twist  to  both 
ends  of  his  body  meant,  and  kept  their  distance. 
I  knew  what  it  meant  too.  These  young  things 
had  already  learned  their  lesson  of  self-defense. 
A  three-weeks-old  baby  skunk  could  hold  his  own 
against  anything. 

I  lay  so  long  watching  them  that  by  and  by  the 
dusk  began  to  deepen  in  the  ravine.  Night  was  at 
hand.  I  must  be  going,  and  was  about  to  draw 
back,  so  as  not  to  frighten  them,  when,  slowly  out 


-- 


They  all  followed  her 


42  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

from  beneath  a  point  of  the  ledge  came  a  long 
black  snout,  and  then  the  mother  of  the  family — 
old  Mrs.  Wood-Pussy. 

I  did  not  budge.  Out  she  came,  and  passing 
the  children  by  without  so  much  as  a  sniff,  made 
off  around  a  rock.  But  if  she  did  not  look  at  them, 
they  did  not  apparently  look  at  her.  Had  she 
been  a  fox  her  babies  would  have  had  her  by  the 
tail  right  off,  and  she  would  have  had  to  nip  them 
sharply  to  make  them  behave ;  but  the  old  skunk 
crawled  out  and  made  off  without  a  word  or  sign 
to  her  family  or  from  them. 

But  they  all  followed  her,  and  tagging  along 
one  after  another,  they  made  off  down  the  ravine 
for  their  suppers  of  mice,  and  grubs,  sweet  corn 
or — chickens!  I  hope  it  was  not  chickens.  For 
the  skunk  is  one  of  our  best  mousers,  killing  great 
numbers  of  mice  in  the  fields  and  woods;  he  is 
also  a  great  destroyer  of  harmful  insects.  But 
he  will  eat  chicken  if  he  finds  it.  Anybody  will, 
in  fact.  So  I  hope  it  was  not  toward  one  of  the 
chicken  coops  on  the  island  that  the  family  were 
going,  for  they  ought  not  to  be  killed;  they  do 
much  more  good  than  harm. 

I  don't  know  where  they  went  before  morning, 
for  darkness  had  come,  and  I  could  not  follow 


THE  WOOD-PUSSY  43 

them.  Perhaps  they  climbed  out  of  their  ravine 
and  wandered  up  through  the  dark  to  the  door- 
yard  under  my  bedroom  window;  for  during  the 
night  the  sea  wind  came  in  with  a  pungent  breath 
that  was  not  brought  from  the  gulf  stream;  a 
breath  that  told  me  the  wood-pussy  was  roaming 
abroad  over  the  island  and  had  passed  beneath 
my  open  window. 


A  HOUSE  OF  MANY  DOORS 


CHAPTER  V 

A    HOUSE    OF    MANY    DOOBS 

WILL  you  look  carefully  at  the  little  picture 
on  this  page  to  see  if  you  can  make  out 
fish-hawks,  "crow "-blackbirds  and  an  English 
sparrow — two  English  sparrows?  This  picture 
is  of  a  fish-hawk's  nest  in  whose  rough,  uneven 
walls  were  a  whole  colony  of  smaller  nests. 

I  know  of  a  large  tenement  house  in  the  city  of 
Boston,  where  people  of  thirteen  different  nation- 
alities are  living.  The  ends  of  the  earth  gath- 
ered together  under  one  roof !  There  were  not  so 
many  kinds  of  jabbering  tongues  in  the  whole  of 
the  ancient  city  of  Babel,  I  am  sure. 

Every  great  city  nowadays  is  a  whole  small 
world;  and  every  great  city  tenement  house  is  a 
whole  smaller  world.  The  whole  world  is  trying 

47 


48  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

to  get  into  every  large  city,  though  there  simply 
seems  not  enough  room  even  with  crowding. 

That  is  not  so  of  the  wide  open  country.  There 
is  plenty  of  room  in  the  country — for  every  bird 
to  have  a  nest  tree  all  to  himself,  you  would  think. 
Yet  here  is  the  picture  of  a  fish-hawk's  nest  down 
along  the  shores  of  Delaware  Bay,  in  which  live, 
besides  the  fish-hawks,  a  small  community  of  crow- 
blackbirds,  and  two  families  of  English  sparrows. 

Now  it  happens  that  this  nest  tree  of  the  fish- 
hawks  is  the  only  tree  close  around  that  particu- 
lar spot,  but  there  are  other  trees  in  sight,  a  whole 
forest  in  fact.  It  is  not  because  there  is  no  room 
in  the  neighborhood  that  the  blackbirds  and  spar- 
rows have  moved  in  with  the  fish-hawks. 

Moreover,  this  huge  nest  of  the  hawks,  planted 
firmly  upon  the  very  top  of  a  tall  oak  that  stands 
almost  alone  on  the  edge  of  a  vast  salt-marsh,  is 
not  the  natural  nesting-place  for  blackbirds  and 
sparrows.  This  marsh-land  is  the  range  of  the 
hawks.  They  are  at  home  here.  The  blackbirds 
and  sparrows,  for  some  reason,  have  broken  away 
from  the  inland.  The  blackbirds  have  nested 
here,  to  my  knowledge,  for  thirteen  years;  the 
sparrows  discovered  the  great  nest  only  a  year 
ago. 


A  HOUSE  OF  MANY  DOORS  49 

The  walls  of  the  nest  are  as  big  around  as  a 
hogshead  and  as  rough  as  the  protruding  ends  of 
corn-stalks,  dead  limbs,  and  small  cord-wood  can 
make  them.  It  is  around  in  the  crevices  of  these 
jagged  walls  that  the  blackbirds  and  sparrows 
lodge  their  nests. 

I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  all  is  harmonious 
in  this  queer  colony.  There  was  no  appearance 
of  discord — none  but  the  presence  of  the  spar- 
rows. The  blackbirds  and  hawks  might  get  on 
peaceably  together;  but  what  saint  among  the 
birds  could  live  peaceably  with  an  English  spar- 
row? 

Neither  am  I  sure  why  these  small  birds  choose 
to  live  thus  with  the  hawks.  They  are  both  in- 
dependent birds,  not  hangers-on  at  all;  so  it  can- 
not be  the  mere  convenience  of  a  ready-made 
nesting-site.  That  could  be  had  anywhere;  be- 
sides, naturally,  neither  grackles  (another  name 
for  these  crow-blackbirds)  nor  sparrows  would 
fly  far  away  into  a  marsh  in  looking  for  a  place 
to  build.  It  cannot  be  that  they  come  for  the  bits 
of  fish  left  after  the  young  hawks  have  eaten. 
They  are  not  particularly  fond  of  fish,  and  there 
would  not  be  crumbs  enough  to  make  their  coming 
worth  while,  anyway. 


50  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

I  believe  the  blackbirds  are  like  the  tenement 
people:  they  enjoy  living  in  a  tenement.  There 
are  extraordinary  social  advantages  in  a  big, 
round  hawk's  nest — fine  chances  for  company  and 
gossip. 

At  least  I  hope  it  is  for  friendly  interest  and 
good-fellowship.  I  can  believe  that  the  hawks 
enjoy  the  cheerful  clatter  of  the  garrulous  crow- 
blacks  and  perhaps  even  the  small  impertinences 
of  the  sparrows.  And  on  their  side,  the  crow- 
blacks  and  sparrows  feel  a  certain  protection,  per- 
haps, in  the  presence  of  the  hawks,  and  may,  who 
knows,  appreciate  the  friendship  of  such  high  and 
mighty  folk. 

Quite  as  interesting  and  unusual  a  show  of 
friendship,  at  least  of  friendliness,  was  seen  re- 
cently by  bird-lovers  on  a  telephone-pole  in  a 
thickly  settled  town  not  far  from  my  home. 

There  were  poles  in  plenty  sticking  up  all  over 
the  surrounding  country;  but  passing  by  all  of 
these,  a  pair  of  flickers,  a  pair  of  chickadees,  and 
a  pair  of  red-headed  woodpeckers  selected  the 
same  pole  for  their  nests,  prepared  their  holes, 
hatched  and  brought  up  their  large,  noisy  families 
together,  without  a  single  quarrel  so  far  as  the 
curious  public  knew.  And  they  did  all  this  with 


Tall  black  cormorants,   great  foam-white  gulls 


52  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

persons  coining  from  far  and  near  to  stare  at 
them  through  opera-glasses;  for  the  red-headed 
woodpeckers  were  the  only  pair  with  such  heads 
reported  that  season  anywhere  around. 

Some  day  the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb, 
the  Bible  says,  which,  of  course,  is  much  more  of 
a  wonder  than  what  I  saw  one  summer  on  the 
great  bird  rocks  in  the  Pacific  ocean  just  off  the 
coast  of  Oregon.  But  there  on  the  Three  Arch- 
Rocks  I  saw  murres  and  cormorants,  and  puffins 
and  guillemots,  and  stormy  petrels,  and  gulls  liv- 
ing in  colonies,  tens  of  thousands  of  them, 
crowded  together  on  the  bare  rocks  just  as  tight 
as  they  could  squeeze. 

No  city  tenement  was  ever  crowded  with  dwell- 
ers as  was  each  of  these  three  huge  rocks.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  there  must  have  been  a  hun- 
dred thousand  pairs  of  birds  housekeeping  on 
each  of  those  rocks — houses  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand doors. 

But  the  most  interesting  thing  about  the 
crowded  life  in  these  vast  tenements  was. the  liv- 
ing, side  by  side,  up  on  the  bare  wind-swept  sum- 
mit, of  the  cormorants  and  gulls,  sworn  enemies. 
Sworn  enemies,  I  say,  yet  both  kinds  of  colonies 
were  thriving.  Nevertheless,  let  the  mother  or 


A  HOUSE  OF  MANY  DOORS  53 

father  cormorant  leave  the  nest  of  babies  unpro- 
tected for  one  instant  and  down  swoops  the  baby- 
eating  gull  and  gobbles  them  up. 

Yes,  gobbles  them,  swallows  them  whole.  Then 
would  you  not  say  it  was  strange  to  see  a  cormo- 
rant's  nest  full  of  growing  babies,  and  two  feet 
away  on  the  same  shelf  of  rock,  a  gull's  nest  full 
of  growing  babies,  especially  with  the  old  gulls 
watching  every  minute  to  pounce  upon  the  young 
cormorants?  Strange  enough. 

But  the  old  cormorants  never  give  the  greedy 
gulls  a  chance  to  pounce  upon  their  babies.  For, 
when  one  cormorant  goes  off  to  sea  for  fish,  the 
mate  is  standing  by  to  spread  its  wings  over  its 
young  to  protect  them  from  their  enemy.  They 
are  never  for  an  instant  left  uncovered. 

So  here  are  their  nests,  side  by  side,  as  close  as 
plates  on  a  dinner  table ;  and  here  the  birds  multi- 
ply and  people  the  rocks — tall  black  cormorants, 
great  foam-white  gulls — so  eternally  watchful  are 
the  parent  cormorants. 

A  baby  cormorant  is  never  out  of  its  father's 
or  mother's  arms — not  until  it  is  too  big  for  the 
gobbling  gulls  to  swallow. 


WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FAEM-YAED 


CHAPTER  VI 

WILD   LIFE    IN    THE    FARM-YARD 

I  WANT  you  to  visit  a  farm  where  there  are 
turkeys  and  geese  and  guineas.  If  you  live 
in  New  York  City  or  in  Chicago  you  may  not  be 
able  to  do  so  for  some  time.  Then  take  a  trip  to 
the  market  or  to  the  zoological  gardens.  But 
most  of  you  live  close  enough  to  the  country,  so 
that  you  could  easily  find  a  farmer  who  would  in- 
vite you  out  to  see  his  prize  gobbler  and  his  great 
hissing  gander. 

However,  I  shall  not  wait  to  send  you ;  for  I  am 
going  to  take  you — now — out  to  an  old  farm  that 
I  loved  as  a  boy,  where  there  are  turkeys  and 

57 


58  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

geese  and  guineas  and  pigs  and  pigeons,  cows  and 
horses  and  mules,  cats  and  dogs,  chickens  and 
bees  and  sheep,  and  a  hornets'  nest  and  a  nest 
of  flying  squirrels  in  the  same  old  grindstone  ap- 
ple-tree, and  a  pair  of  barn  owls  in  the  old  wagon 
house,  and — I  don't  know  what  else;  for  there 
was  everything  on  the  old  farm  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  I  suppose  we  shall  find  everything  there  yet. 

I  want  you  to  see  the  turkeys.  I  want  you  to 
follow  an  old  hen  turkey  to  her  stolen  nest.  I 
want  you  to  watch  the  old  gobbler  turkey  take  his 
family  to  bed — to  roost,  I  mean.  For  unless  you 
are  a  boy,  and  are  living  in  the  wild  portions  of 
Georgia  and  the  southeastern  states,  you  may 
never  see  a  wild  turkey.  For  that  reason  I  want 
you  to  watch  this  tame  turkey,  because  he  is  al- 
most as  wild  as  a  wild  turkey  in  everything  ex- 
cept his  fear  of  you.  He  has  been  tamed,  we 
know,  since  the  year  1526,  yet  not  one  of  his  wild 
habits  has  been  changed. 

So  it  is  with  the  house  cat.  We  have  tamed 
the  house  cat,  but  we  have  not  changed  the  wild, 
night-prowling  hunter  in  him.  You  have  to 
smooth  a  cat  the  right  way,  or  the  wild  cat  in  him 
will  scratch  and  bite  you.  Have  you  never  seen 
his  tail  twitch,  his  eyes  blaze,  his  claws  work  as 


WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FARM-YARD  59 

he  lias  crouched  watching  at  a  rat's  hole,  or 
crawled  stealthily  upon  a  bird  in  the  meadow 
grass  I 

So,  if  you  will  watch,  you  shall  see  a  real  wild 
turkey  in  the  tamest  old  gobbler  on  the  farm. 

Watch  him  go  to  roost.  Watch  him  get  ready 
to  go  to  roost,  I  should  say,  for  a  turkey  seems  to 
begin  to  think  of  roosting  about  noon-time,  espe- 
cially in  the  winter;  and  it  takes  him  from  about 
noon  till  night  to  make  up  his  mind  that  he  really 
must  go  to  roost. 

He  comes  along  under  the  apple-tree  of  a  De- 
cember afternoon  and  looks  up  at  the  leafless 
limbs  where  he  has  been  roosting  since  summer. 
He  stretches  his  long  neck,  lays  his  little  brainless 
head  over  on  one  side,  then  over  on  the  other. 
He  takes  a  good  long  look  at  the  limb.  Then  bobs 
his  head — one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight- 
nine-ten  times,  or  perhaps  twenty-two  or  -three 
times,  and  takes  a  still  longer  look  at  the  limb, 
saying  to  himself — quint,  quint,  quint,  quint! 
which  means:  "I  think  I  '11  go  to  roost!  I  think 
I'll  go  to  roost!  I  think  I'll  go  to  roost!  I 
think  I  '11  go  to  roost!  I  think  I  '11  go  to  roost! 
I  think  I  '11  go  to  roost!"  He  thinks  he  will,  but 
he  has  n't  made  up  his  mind  quite. 


60      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Then  he  stretches  his  long  neck  again,  lays  his 
little  witless  head  on  the  side  again,  bobs  and 
bobs,  looks  and  looks  and  looks,  says  quint,  quint, 
quint,  quint — "I  think  I  '11  go  to  roost,"  but  is  just 
as  undecided  as  ever. 

He  does  the  performance  over  and  over  again 
and  would  never  go  to  roost  if  the  darkness  did 
not  come  and  compel  him.  He  would  stand  under 
that  tree  stretching,  turning,  looking,  bobbing, 
"quinting,"  thinking,  until  he  thought  his  head 
off,  saying  all  the  while — 

One  for  the  money ;   two  for  the  show ; 

Three   to   get   ready;    and   four   to — get    ready   to   go! 

But  after  a  while,  along  toward  dusk  (and  aw- 
fully suddenly!) — fop!  gobble!  splutter!  ivhoop! 
— and  there  he  is,  up  on  the  limb,  safe!  Eeally 
safe !  But  it  was  an  exceedingly  close  call. 

And  this  is  the  very  way  the  wild  turkey  acts. 
The  naturalists  who  had  a  chance  to  study  the 
great  flocks  of  wild  turkeys  years  ago  describe 
these  same  absurd  actions.  This  lack  of  snap 
and  decision  is  not  something  the  tame  turkey  has 
learned  in  the  farm-yard.  The  fact  is  he  does 
not  seem  to  have  learned  anything  during  his  350 
years  in  the  barn-yard,  nor  does  he  seem  to  have 


WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FARM-YARD  61 

forgotten  anything  that  he  knew  as  a  wild  turkey 
in  the  woods,  except  his  fear  of  man. 

Late  in  October  the  wild  turkeys  of  a  given 
neighborhood  would  get  together  in  flocks  of 
from  ten  to  a  hundred  and  travel  on  foot  through 
the  rich  bottom-lands  in  search  of  food.  In  these 
journeys  the  males  would  go  ahead,  apart  from  the 
females,  and  lead  the  way.  The  hens,  each  con- 
ducting her  family  in  a  more  or  less  separate 
group,  came  straggling  leisurely  along  in  the  rear. 
As  they  advanced,  they  would  meet  other  flocks, 
thus  swelling  their  numbers. 

After  a  time  they  were  sure  to  come  to  a  river 
— a  dreadful  thing,  for,  like  the  river  of  the  old 
song,  it  was  a  river  to  cross.  Up  and  down  the 
banks  would  stalk  the  gobblers,  stretching  their 
necks  out  over  the  water  and  making  believe  to 
start,  as  they  do  when  going  to  roost  in  the  apple- 
trees. 

All  day  long,  all  the  next  day,  all  the  third  day, 
if  the  river  was  wide,  they  would  strut  and  cluck 
along  the  shore,  making  up  their  minds. 

The  ridiculous  creatures  have  wings;  they  can 
fly;  but  they  are  afraid!  After  all  these  days, 
however,  the  whole  flock  has  mounted  the  tallest 


62 


BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 


trees  along  the  bank.  One  of  the  gobblers  has 
come  forward  as  leader  in  the  emergency.  Sud- 
denly, from  his  perch,  he  utters  a  single  cluck, — 
the  signal  for  the  start, — and  every  turkey  sails 
into  the  air.  There  is  a  great  flapping — and  the 
terrible  river  is  crossed. 

A  few  weak  members  fall  on  the  way  over,  but 
not  to  drown.  Drawing  their  wings  close  in 
against  their  sides,  and  spreading  their  round 
fan-like  tails  to  the  breeze,  they  strike  out  as  if 
born  to  swim,  and  come  quickly  to  land. 


The   tame   turkey-hen   is  notorious  for  stealing  her  nest 


WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FAKM-YARD  63 

The  tame  turkey-hen  is  notorious  for  stealing 
her  nest.  The  wild  hen  steals  hers — not  to  plague 
her  owner,  of  course,  as  is  the  common  be- 
lief about  the  domestic  turkey,  but  to  get  away 
from  the  gobbler,  who,  in  order  to  prolong  the 
honeymoon,  will  break  the  eggs  as  fast  as  they 
are  laid.  He  has  just  enough  brains  to  be  senti- 
mental, jealous,  and  boundlessly  fond  of  himself. 
His  wives,  too,  are  foolish  enough  to  worship  him, 
until — there  is  an  egg  in  the  nest.  That  event 
makes  them  wise.  They  understand  this  strut- 
ting coxcomb,  and  quietly  turning  their  backs  on 
him,  leave  him  to  parade  alone. 

There  are  crows,  also,  and  buzzards  from  whom 
the  wild  turkey  hen  must  hide  the  eggs.  Nor  dare 
she  forget  her  own  danger  while  sitting,  for  there 
are  foxes,  owls,  and  prowling  lynxes  ready  enough 
to  pounce  upon  her.  On  the  farm  there  are  still 
many  of  these  enemies  besides  the  worst  of  them 
all,  the  farmer  himself. 

For  a  nest  the  wild  hen,  like  the  tame  turkey 
of  the  pasture,  scratches  a  slight  depression  in 
the  ground,  usually  under  a  thick  bush,  sometimes 
in  a  hollow  log,  and  there  lays  from  twelve  to 
twenty  eggs,  which  are  somewhat  smaller  and 
more  elongated  than  the  tame  turkey's,  but  of  the 


64      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

same  color:  dull  cream,  sprinkled  with  reddish 
dots. 

I  have  often  hunted  for  stolen  turkey  nests,  and 
hunted  in  vain,  because  the  cautious  mother 
had  covered  her  eggs  when  leaving  them.  This 
is  one  of  the  wild  habits  that  has  persisted.  The 
wild  hen,  as  the  hatching  approaches,  will  not 
trust  even  this  precaution,  however,  but  remains 
without  food  and  drink  upon  the  nest  until  the 
chicks  can  be  led  off.  She  can  scarcely  be  driven 
from  the  nest,  often  allowing  herself  to  be  cap- 
tured first. 

Mother-love  burns  fierce  in  her.  Such  helpless 
things  are  her  chicks!  She  hears  them  peeping 
in  the  shell  and  breaks  it  to  help  them  out.  She 
preens  and  dries  them  and  keeps  them  close  un- 
der her  for  days. 

Not  for  a  wreek  after  they  are  hatched  does  she 
allow  them  out  in  a  rain.  If,  after  that,  they  get  a 
cold  wetting,  the  wild  mother,  it  is  said,  will  feed 
the  buds  of  the  spice-bush  to  her  brood,  as  our 
grandmothers  used  to  administer  mint  tea  to  us. 

The  tame  hen  does  seem  to  have  lost  something 
of  this  wild-mother  skill,  doubtless  because  for 
many  generations  she  has  been  entirely  freed  of 
the  larger  part  of  the  responsibility. 


WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FARM-YARD  65 

I  never  knew  a  tame  mother  turkey  to  doc- 
tor her  infants  for  vermin.  But  the  wild  hen 
will.  The  woods  are  full  of  ticks  and  detestable 
vermin  as  deadly  as  cold  rains.  When  her  brood 
begins  to  lag  and  pine,  the  wild  mother  knows, 
and  leading  them  to  some  old  ant-hill,  she  gives 
them  a  sousing  dust-bath.  The  vermin  hate  the 
odor  of  the  ant-scented  dust,  and  after  a  series  of 
these  baths  disappear. 

This  is  wise ;  and  if  this  report  be  true,  then  the 
wild  turkey  is  as  wise  and  far-seeing  a  mother  as 
the  woods  contain.  One  observer  even  tells  of 
three  hens  that  stole  off  together  and  fixed  up  a 
nest  between  themselves.  Each  put  in  her  eggs — 
forty-two  in  all — and  each  took  turns  guarding, 
so  that  the  nest  was  never  left  alone. 

What  special  enemy  caused  this  unique  part- 
nership the  naturalist  does  not  say.  The  three 
mothers  built  together,  brooded  together,  and  to- 
gether guarded  the  nest.  But  how  did  those 
three  mothers  divide  the  babies? 

I  said  I  wanted  you  to  visit  a  farm  where  there 
are  turkeys.  And  you  will  have  to  if  you  would 
see  the  turkey  at  home.  For,  though  I  have  trav- 
eled through  the  South,  and  been  in  the  swamps 
and  river  "bottoms"  there  all  along  the  Savan- 


66  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

nah,  with  wild  turkeys  around  me  I  have  never 
seen  a  live  one. 

I  was  in  a  small  steamboat  on  the  Savannah 
River  one  night.  We  were  tied  up  till  morning 
along  the  river  bank  under  the  trees  of  the  deep 
swamp.  Twilight  and  the  swamp  silence  had  set- 
tled about  us.  The  moon  came  up.  A  banjo  had 
been  twanging,  but  the  breakdown  was  done,  the 
shuffling  feet  quiet.  The  little  cotton-boat  had 
become  a  part  of  the  moonlit  silence  and  the 
river  swamp. 

Two  or  three  roustabouts  were  lounging  upon 
some  rosin-barrels  near  by,  under  the  spell  of  the 
round  autumnal  moon.  There  was  frost  in  the' 
air,  and  fragrant  odors,  but  not  a  sound,  not  a 
cry  or  call  of  beast  or  bird,  until,  suddenly,  break- 
ing through  the  silence  with  a  jarring  eery  echo, 
was  heard  the  hoot  of  the  great  horned  owl. 

One  of  the  roustabouts  dropped  quickly  to  the 
deck  and  held  up  his  hand  for  silence.  We  all  lis- 
tened. And  again  came  the  uncanny  Whoo-hoo- 
hoo-whoo-you-oh-oh! 

"Dat  ol'  King  Owl,"  whispered  the  darky. 
"Him  's  lookin'  fer  turkey.  OP  gobbler  done 
gone  hid,  I  reckon.  Listen!  01' King  Owl  gwine 
make  oP  gobbler  talk  back." 


WILD  LIFE  IN  THE  FARM-YARD  67 

We  listened,  but  there  was  no  frightened  "gob- 
ble" from  the  tree-tops.  There  were  wild  tur- 
keys all  around  me  in  the  swamp;  but,  though  I 
sat  up  until  the  big  southern  moon  rode  high 
overhead,  I  heard  no  answer,  no  challenge  to  the 
echoing  hoot  of  the  great  owl.  The  next  day  a 
colored  boy  brought  aboard  the  boat  a  wild  turkey 
which  he  had  shot  in  the  swamp;  but  I  am  still 
waiting  to  see  and  hear  the  great  bronze  bird  alive 
in  its  native  haunts. 


A  SONG  OF  THE  WINTER  WOODS 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  SONG   OF   THE   WINTER  WOODS 

The  oaks  are  green,  the  laurels  gay, 

The   blithe  birds   sing   the   bright   day  long; 

The  pines  are  green  and  gay  as  they, 
And  full  of  murmuring  song. 

The  oaks  are  bare,  the  laurels  stark; 

The  birds  to  warmer  lands  have  flown; 
The  pines  are  green  and  singing — Hark ! 

Their  song  makes  sweeter  moan. 

For  summer  rich   and  winter  lean, 

O  pine-tree,   stalwart,   straight  and  strong, 

Give  me  the  strength  that  keeps  thee  green, 
The  grace  that  gives  thee  song. 

VTTERE  you  to  ask  me,  "Which  day  in  all  the 
V?  year  is  best  for  a  trip  to  the  woods?"  I 
could  only  answer,  "Any  day,  every  day,  summer 
or  winter, — the  day  you  long  to  go."  For  when 
you  long  to  go,  then  there  is  usually  a  need  for 
you  to  go;  and  no  needy  heart  was  ever  turned 
by  the  woods  empty  away.  But  many  a  heart 
that  knows  and  loves  the  summer  woods,  has 
never  found  joy  in  the  winter  woods,  has  never 
seen  their  glory,  nor  heard  their  song. 
71 


72  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

This  is  because  seeing  glories  and  hearing 
songs  when  the  sky  is  dark  and  the  birds  are  gone 
is  somewhat  difficult.  It  requires  an  eye  and  an 
ear  for  other  things  than  mere  things.  The  sum- 
mer woods  are  full  of  things;  there  are  things 
enough,  indeed,  in  the  winter  woods,  if  one  must 
have  things,  but  what  are  the  winter  woods  but 
an  escape  from  things? 

The  wild  bird  does  not  beat  at  the  bars  of  its 
cage  because  it  wants  to  be  free  to  find  a  certain 
seed,  or  fly  to  a  certain  spot,  or  meet  a  certain 
flock  of  its  kind.  No,  it  simply  longs  to  be  free — 
to  be  out  of  the  narrow  cage  into  the  wide  free 
sky  on  its  buoyant  wings.  So  you  turn  to  the 
open  woods  and  fields,  not  for  this  or  that,  but 
because  you  want  to  go — to  be  free  for  a  day, 
to  wander  and  range  with  the  wide  sky  over  you, 
with  the  natural  earth  beneath  you,  with  the 
mighty  forms  of  the  trees  about  you,  with  the 
many  voices,  odors,  shapes  and  vistas  accom- 
panying you  and  beckoning  you  on. 

Now,  when  that  feeling  comes  upon  you,  do  not 
wait  for  a  summer  day;  do  not  wait  for  a  pleas- 
ant day.  Go  forth  rain  or  shine,  summer  or  win- 
ter, into  the  heart  of  the  woods. 

I  have  always  lived  where  I  could  easily  reach 


The  frozen  winter  fields 


74      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

the  deep  woods;  I  have  tramped  afield  the  year 
around;  but  since  my  earliest  boyhood  it  has 
been  with  a  keener  zest1  in  winter  than  in  summer. 

And  that  is  not  because  I  was  a  boy.  A  live 
boy  loves  the  woods ;  but  so  does  a  live  girl.  Give 
a  live  girl  equal  chance  and  she  will  love  every 
thing  that  a  live  boy  loves — the  woods  and  the 
winter  as  though  she  were  a  boy. 

No,  I  love  the  winter  woods,  because,  to  begin 
with,  there  is  more  wideness  to  the  winter,  more 
wildness  too.  Upland  and  lowland,  field  and 
wood-lot,  creek  and  meadow  are  thrown  wide  open 
and  all  abandoned,  all  left  to  the  wild  things,  to 
the  wayward  winds,  and  to  your  own  wild,  way- 
ward feet. 

Fields  where  corn  and  melons  grew  in  sum- 
mer, and  where  the  farmer  kept  a  suspicious  eye 
upon  you  as  you  came  near,  are  forsaken  now. 
.JfThey  are  yours  for  the  tramping.  Their  fences 
'are  no  dividing  line,  no  barrier,  no  warning.  Do 
the  winter  winds  mind  fences?  or  the  winter 
snows?  or  the  wings  of  the  winter  owls?  or  the 
prowling  feet  of  the  winter  mink?  No  more  do 
the  feet  of  a  boy  on  the  frozen  winter  fields. 

What  of  it  if  all  day  long  you  hear  no  cry  of 
bird,  you  see  no  sign  of  life — nothing  but  the 


A  SONG  OF  THE  WINTER  WOODS 


75 


hard  bare  earth,  or  the  endless  stretch  of  snow? 
I  have  just  returned  from  such  a  winter  walk — 
of  mile  after  mile  through  snow-laden  woods, 
across  snow-covered  meadows,  over  snow-hung 


Upland  and  lowland,   field  and  wood-lot 

ledges  without  seeing  anything  alive.  Nor  did  I 
wish  to  see  anything  alive.  For  I  was  alive, 
warm,  throbbing,  abounding  with  life  that  faced 
the  biting  wind,  that  laughed  at  the  bitter  cold, 
that  reached  out  toward  the  snowy  miles  with 
hunger  for  them. 

Alive  ?    Was  I  not  alive  ?    Were  not  the  winds, 


76      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

the  cold,  the  trackless  miles  alive?  Did  they  not 
pursue  and  fight  me,  showing  their  savage  fangs 
on  my  trail  as  they  have  showed  them  on  every 
human  trail  since  human  feet  first  dared  to  break 
a  track  into  the  wilderness? 

Not  even  a  chickadee  was  heard  in  the  silence  of 
the  woods;  I  did  not  see  a  single  animal  track 
in  the  new  snow.  Was  it  then  an  empty,  fruit- 
less walk?  No,  for  I  went  out  to  feel  things,  as 
well  as  to  see  things.  I  went  out  to  meet  the 
woods,  to  breast  the  winds,  to  dare  the  chill,  to 
subdue  the  long  hard  distances  of  swamp  and 
pasture.  I  went  out  just  to  be  out,  to  be  afield, 
to  beat  the  hot  blood  into  my  feet  on  the  frozen 
ground;  to  stand  off  the  cold;  to  catch  a  breath, 
as  I  topped  a  hill,  out  of  the  very  teeth  of  the  bit- 
ing wind. 

I  took  no  gun,  because  every  creature  out-of- 
doors  was  on  my  side  in  this  fight  against  the 
cold.  I  took  no  dog;  I  wanted  no  companion;  I 
must  fight  it  out  alone — alone  against  the  wild- 
ness  out  of  doors,  against  the  mighty  forces  of 
the  North  for  the  victory  of  life, — to  defy,  to  live, 
to  glow  with  the  mighty  joy  of  life ! 

There  are  other  tempers,  other  moods  of 
the  winter  woods  that  answer  to  feelings  and 


A  SONG  OF  THE  WINTER  WOODS         77 

thoughts  within  us  as  the  happier,  softer  sum- 
mer never  can.  The  thoughts  of  youth  are  long, 
long  thoughts;  solemn,  serious  thoughts  very 
often,  that  find  themselves  at  home  in  the  silence 
and  dim  gray  twilight  of  the  winter  woods.  The 
leafless  trees,  the  flattened,  faded  marsh,  the  wind- 
swept hills,  how  bare  and  simple  and  real  they 
are!  how  natural  and  frank  and  honest!  It  is 
easy  to  see  them  whole,  easy  to  understand  them, 
easy  to  believe  and  love  them. 

Summer  and  winter  I  have  tramped  the  woods. 
I  have  brought  back  many  a  happy  observation, 
many  a  rare  flower,  many  a  partridge  and  fat 
'possum,  many  a  rabbit  and  muskrat.  But  none 
of  these  was  the  best  that  I  got  from  my  tramps. 
The  best  things  I  never  carried  home  in  my  hands, 
1)ut  in  my  heart;  and  when  my  hands  were  empty, 
•as  often  they  were  in  the  winter,  my  heart  as 
often  was  full. 

In  the  summer  there  would  be  so  much  to  see, 
so  much  to  carry  home  in  my  hands,  that  I  often 
had  no  time  to  think  of  anything  to  put  into  my 
heart.  But  in  the  winter,  what  had  I  except  my 
thoughts,  those  long,  long  thoughts!  And  where 
could  I  carry  them  but  in  my  heart  ? 

You  ask  me  what  they  were?  and  what  I  did 


78 


BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 


with  them?  I  answer,  they  were  poems.  Those 
rare  best  things  brought  home  with  me  from  the 
winter  woods  were  poems;  poems  that  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  write ;  but  poems,  for  all  of  that, 
which  I  shall  forever  feel. 

I  have  tried,  now  and  then,  to  write  them  down 
in  words.  But  the  words  of  a  poem  are  not  the 
important  thing.  I  have  set  some  of  the  words 
of  those  poems  down  here  at  the  beginning  and 
end  of  this  chapter  to  show  you  that  I  really  tried 
to  write  the  poems.  The  words,  I  fear,  are 
taken  from  the  dictionary;  but  the  poems,  that  is 


The  dim  gray   twilight  of  the  winter 


A  SONG  OF  THE  WINTER  WOODS          79 

the  thoughts,  the  emotions,  I  know,  were  found  in 
the  winter  woods.  The  world  is  full  of  poets  who 
cannot  write;  and  the  woods,  the  winter  woods, 
are  full  of  poems  that  you  need  never  try  to  write. 

It  is  now  many  years  since  these  verses  here  at 
the  end  were  written,  and  many,  many  years  since 
they  were  first  felt. 

I  remember  the  night  very  well.  I  was  quite  a 
small  boy.  The  crows  began  to  go  over  early 
that  afternoon,  long,  long  lines  of  them,  into  the 
thick  pine  trees  at  the  head  of  Cubby  Hollow. 
As  the  last  stragglers  of  the  flock  passed,  and  the 
early  twilight  deepened,  I  followed  the  birds 
across  the  frozen  fields  to  their  roost  in  the  dark 
pines. 

Were  there  a  hundred  thousand  crows  in  the 
roost?  More,  many  more  than  a  hundred  thou- 
sand, I  should  say.  The  trees  were  black  with 
them — so  crowded  with  them,  that  as  I  crept 
softly  over  the  mat  of  pine-needles  on  the  ground 
I  could  reach  into  the  smaller  trees  and  touch  the 
weary  sleepers. 

The  moon  came  up ;  the  wind  rose ;  and  over  me 
in  the  tall  trees  swayed  the  muffled  black  forms. 

They  were  only  crows  and  pine  trees.  It  was 
only  a  cold  winter  night.  I  was  only  a  school- 


80  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

boy.  But  I  was  more  than  a  school-boy  too.  No 
boy  is  only  a  school-boy.  Every  boy  is  part  poet. 
And  any  boy,  creeping  like  a  shadow  over  the  si- 
lent carpet  of  those  dark  winter  woods,  could  have 
heard — 

The  wild  winds  softly  close  the  door; 
A  shadow  steals  across  the  floor ; 
And  sweetly  o'er  the  cradles  pour 
The  balm  of   sleep. 

And  all  is  dark — the  room  and  hall, 
Except  the  sifted  moonbeams  fall 
Between  the  rifted  rafters  tall 
Into  the  gloom. 

The  house  is  hushed ;  the  lamps  burn  low ; 
And  moving  figures   come  and  go, 
And  touch  the  cradles — to  ana  fro — 
Within  the  room. 

They   sleep.     They   dream   and   dreaming  sigh, 
"Sleep  on,"  a  murmur  makes  reply, 
"The  mother  to  her  child  is  nigh — 
The  night  is  long." 

With  head  beneath  a  raven  wing 
They  sleep — nor  hear  the  wild  gales  sing; 
They  sleep — nor  feel  the  tossed  tree  fling 
Their   cradle   far. 

So  I  shall  nestle  'neath  a  wing 
Where  storms   and  Stars  together  sing, 
Where   woods    and   worlds   together    swing — 
When  I  shall  sleep. 


ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL 


ON   THE    'POSSUM'S   TRAIL 


FROSTY  weather  and  ripe  persimmons  had 
come,  with  Thanksgiving  close  at  hand. 
Uncle  Jethro  and  I  were  husking  corn. 

"What  had  you  rather  have  for  your  Thanks- 
giving dinner,  Uncle  Jeth,"  I  asked,  "a  big  tur- 
key gobbler  or  a  nice  young  fat  gander  I ' ' 

The  old  darky  stopped  short,  dropped  his  ear 
of  corn  to  the  ground,  and  looked  me  over  as  if  he 
meant  to  have  me  for  a  dinner. 

1 '  Gobbler !  Gander ! ' '  That  was  what  he  said ; 
but  what  he  meant  was :  * ' Don't  you  give  me  any 
gobbling  old  turkey!  Don't  you  bring  me  any 
hissing  old  gander!  Your  Uncle  Jethro  won't 


84      BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

touch  them.  He  won't  eat  anything  on  Thanks- 
giving Day  but  'possum!"  No,  he  only  said 
''Gobbler!  Gander!"  but  he  meant  "  'Possum." 

I  was  humbly  apologetic,  and  quick  with  my 
promise  to  bring  Uncle  Jethro  a  big,  fat  'possum 
for  his  Thanksgiving  dinner,  if  there  was  one  left 
in  the  woods  of  New  Jersey. 

We  had  finished  husking  the  shock  of  corn  and 
I  had  gone  on  ahead,  broken  the  binding  on  the 
next  shock  and  pushed  it  over,  while  Uncle  Jethro 
was  kicking  the  stray  ears  we  had  just  husked  into 
the  pile. 

As  the  stalks  tumbled  I  looked  down  to  see  the 
mice  run,  when,  to  my  astonishment,  I  saw,  curled 
up  in  a  bed  of  corn-blades,  an  enormous  old  'pos- 
sum. He  had  taken  this  shock  of  cornstalks  for 
his  winter  home,  and  had  made  his  nest  at  its  very 
center,  snug  and  warm  and  weather-proof. 

He  had  been  sound  asleep  as  the  shock  tumbled 
over,  but  as  the  glaring  light  burst  upon  him  he 
half  uncurled,  yawned,  and  blinked,  yet  showed 
no  sign  of  surprise  or  the  least  intention  of  get- 
ting up.  It  was  very  inconvenient  to  have  one's 
house  pulled  down  like  this  about  one's  ears,  and 
wouldn't  I  be  gentleman  enough  now  to  spare 
him  at  least  his  bed? 


ON  THE   'POSSUM'S  TRAIL  85 

"Uncle  Jeth!"  I  called,  as  calmly  as  I  knew 
how.  "Uncle  Jeth,  would  you  mind  if  I  brought 
you  that  Thanksgiving  'possum  to-day?" 

"Mind,  child,  mind?"  he  chuckled.  "Old 
Jethro  shutting  his  door  on  Br'er  'Possum? 
Fetch  him  up,  honey,  fetch  him  up.  Jethro  will 
take  him  in." 

"Well,  how  will  this  one  do?"  I  exclaimed, 
catching  the  'possum,  with  a  quick  grab,  by  the 
tail  and,  as  Uncle  Jethro  started  toward  me,  lift- 
ing him  up  fairly  under  the  old  man's  nose. 

"De  golden  chariot  am  a-coming!"  gasped  Un- 
cle Jethro,  jumping  back,  his  unbelieving  eyes 
bulging  half  out  of  his  head.  "  'Possum!  You 
is  de  beatenes'  boy,  you  is." 

No,  I  had  not  been  hunting  last  night  and  hid- 
den the  'possum  here  as  a  surprise.  I  had  not 
played  a  joke  upon  Uncle  Jethro,  as  he  himself 
saw  immediately  on  examining  the  creature's  bed. 

The  great  fat  fellow  had  slept  in  that  bed  more 
than  one  night,  and  that  within  sight  of  the  house, 
and  directly  along  our  beaten  path  to  the  woods. 
Fifty  times,  at  least,  the  dog  had  passed  this 
shock  of  corn,  had  run  round  it,  had  sniffed  at  it, 
doubtless,  and  gone  on,  while  that  'possum  slept 
peacefully  inside. 


86  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

But  how  did  the  'possum  manage  it,  right  along 
the  path  and  so  near  the  house,  where,  except  for 
this  accident  to  his  shock,  he  might  have  lived 
all  winter !  In  this  way,  partly.  This  corn-shock 
that  he  had  chosen,  unlike  any  other  in  the  field, 


He  climbed  out  on  the  slanting  stake 

stood  close  along  an  old  worm-fence,  and  in  such 
a  position  that  one  of  the  long  cross-stakes,  used 
for  a  post,  slanted  out  over  its  top. 

Now,  if  this  'possum  had  been  a  rabbit  this 
long,  slanting  fence  stake  would  not  have  helped 
him  at  all.  A  rabbit  cannot  walk  the  top  rail  of  a 
fence,  and  climb  out  to  the  tip  of  a  tall,  slanting 
pole.  But  a  'possum  can.  A  rabbit  would  have 
to  creep  under  the  shock  from  the  bottom,  going 
in  on  the  ground.  The  'possum,  however,  did  not 
have  to  do  that  way.  He  walked  the  rider  of  the 


ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL  87 

fence,  climbed  out  on  the  slanting  stake,  dropped 
to  the  top  of  the  shock,  and  went  straight  down 
through  the  middle  to  his  nest. 

He  came  out  the  way  he  went  in,  too,  never 
leaving  his  track  on  the  ground  near  the  corn- 
shock,  nor  his  scent  near  by  where  a  dog  could 
find  it.  He  may  not  have  known  that  dogs  cannot 
walk  fences  and  climb  poles.  Perhaps  not.  But 
he  knew  two  things,  stupid  as  he  looked:  one  was 
that  a  good  and  sure  road  home  lay  atop  the  rail 
fence ;  the  other  was  that  a  pretty  safe  way  to 
hang  out  one 's  latch-string  is  through  one 's  chim- 
ney. 

Yet  perhaps  this  was  only  a  happy  blunder,  and 
not  real  woods-wisdom  at  all.  For  it  is  hard  to 
believe  in  the  cunning  of  so  much  fat.  One  is  not 
surprised  at  a  coon's  taking  the  safe  road  of  the 
top  rail;  but  that  a  sleepy,  logy,  fat,  old  'possum 
should  take  so  much  care  is  a  real  surprise. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  it  was  a  blunder.  I  think 
he  happened  to  walk  the  fence,  happened  to  climb 
the  stake,  and  happened  to  tumble  off  into  a  soft 
spot.  And  if  once,  why  not  again!  For  let  a 
notion  get  into  a  'possum's  head,  and  there  it  will 
stick.  You  can't  get  it  out,  nor  get  another  no- 
tion in;  there  isn't  room,  I  suppose. 


88  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Take  the  case  of  "Pinky,"  a  little  'possum  we 
once  possessed,  who  had  a  notion  that  he  wanted 
to  be  domesticated — wanted  to  be  a  tame  'possum. 

Most  wild  animals  stoutly  resist  all  of  our  well- 
intentioned  efforts  to  bring  them  up  in  dooryard 
ways,  and  take  to  the  woods  again  at  the  first 
opportunity.  I  have  tried  one  wild  animal  after 
another,  but  every  one  of  them  sooner  or  later 
escaped  to  the  wilds — every  one  but  Pinky.  Pinky 
refused  to  stay  in  the  woods  when  taken  back 
there,  because,  forsooth,  into  the  little  think-hole 
in  his  head  had  got  stuck  the  notion  that  he 
wanted  to  be  a  tame  'possum,  and  that  notion 
could  not  be  budged.  He  was  going  to  be  a  tame 
'possum  whether  anybody  wanted  him  to  be  or 
not. 

Pinky  was  one  of  a  family  of  nine  young  'pos- 
sums that  I  caught  several  springs  ago  and  car- 
ried home.  In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  eight 
of  them  were  adopted  by  my  boy  friends;  but 
Pinky,  because  he  was  the  runt,  and  looked  very 
sorry  and  forlorn,  was  not  chosen.  He  was  left 
with  me.  I  kept  him  and  fed  him  milk, — his 
mother  had  choked  to  death  on  a  fish-bone, — until 
he  caught  up  to  the  size  of  the  biggest  mother-fed 
'possum  of  his  age  in  the  woods.  Then  I  took  him 


ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL  89 

down  to  the  old  stump  in  the  brier-patch  where  he 
was  born,  and  left  him  to  shift  for  himself. 

Being  thrown  into  a  brier-patch,  you  remember, 
was  exactly  what  tickled  Br'er  Babbit  half  to 
death ;  and  any  one  would  have  supposed  that  be- 
ing put  gently  down  in  the  middle  of  his  home 
brier-patch  would  have  tickled  a  little  'possum 
even  more. 

No,  not  this  'possum.  Not  Pinky.  I  went 
home  and  forgot  him.  But  the  next  morning, 
when  breakfast  was  preparing,  whom  should  we 
see  but  Pinky,  curled  up  in  the  feather  cushion  of 
the  kitchen  settee,  sound  asleep! 

I  could  hardly  believe  my  eyes. 

He  had  found  his  way  back  during  the  night; 
had  climbed  in  through  the  trough  of  the  pump- 


pinky 


90  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

box  into  the  kitchen,  and  had  gone  to  sleep  like 
the  rest  of  the  family.  He  gaped  and  grinned 
and  looked  about  him  when  awakened,  altogether 
at  home,  and  really  surprised  that  morning  had 
come  so  soon.  He  got  down  and  took  his  saucer 
of  milk  under  the  stove  as  if  nothing  unusual  had 
happened. 

We  had  had  a  good  many  'possums,  crows,  liz- 
ards, and  the  like;  so,  in  spite  of  this  winsome 
show  of  confidence  and  affection,  Pinky  was  borne 
away  once  more  to  the  briers. 

That  night  he  did  not  creep  in  by  the  pump-box 
trough.  Nothing  was  seen  of  him  in  the  morning 
and  he  passed  quickly  out  of  our  minds.  But  he 
still  kept  his  notion.  Two  or  three  days  after 
this,  as  I  was  crossing  the  back  yard,  I  stopped 
to  pick  up  a  large  calabash-gourd  that  I  had  left 
on  the  woodpile.  I  had  cut  a  round  hole  in  the 
gourd  somewhat  larger  than  a  silver  dollar,  in- 
tending to  fasten  the  thing  up  for  the  bluebirds 
to  nest  in. 

It  ought  to  have  been  as  light  as  so  much  air, 
almost,  but  instead  it  was  heavy — the  children 
had  filled  it  with  sand,  I  thought.  I  turned  it  over 
and  looked  into  the  hole,  and  lo!  not  sand,  but 
Pinky! 


ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL  91 

Yes,  there  inside  that  gourd  was  Pinky,  sound 
asleep,  as  usual.  He  wanted  to  be  a  tame  'pos- 
sum, and  he  was  going  to  be  a  tame  'possum,  or 
know  the  reason  why. 

The  notion  had  brought  him  back  again.  How 
he  ever  managed  to  squeeze  through  the  opening 
of  the  gourd,  I  don't  know;  but  there  he  was 
sweetly  sleeping. 

He  no  longer  possessed  the  notion;  the  notion 
possessed  him.  And  what  happened  finally?  A 
sad  thing,  of  course.  A  creature  with  such  a  head 
on  his  shoulders  could  not  come  to  a  fine  and 
happy  end. 

I  took  Pinky  back  to  the  woods  the  third  time, 
and  the  third  time  he  returned,  but  blundered  into 
a  neighbor's  yard,  and — and  a  little  later  he  was 
drawn  up  in  a  bucket  of  water  from  the  bottom 
of  that  neighbor's  well,  still  asleep,  only — they 
could  not  wake  him  up — poor  little  Pinky ! 

Would  Pinky  ever  have  had  wit  enough,  I 
wonder,  to  choose  the  fence-rail  road  and  the 
chimney-top  entrance?  Yet  the  old  fellow  of  the 
corn-shock  that  .Uncle  Jethro  had  for  Thanksgiv- 
ing is  not  the  only  'possum  I  have  known  to  take 
a  roundabout  way  home  for  the  sake  of  hiding  his 
trail.  One  autumn  I  was  fooled  over  and  over, — 


92  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

we  were  fooled,  the  dog  and  I, — until  snow  fell, 
and  the  whole  trick  was  written  out  in  signs  that 
our  stumbling  wits  could  understand. 

Around  the  rim  of  the  steep  wooded  hillsides 
circling  Lupton's  Pond  runs  a  rail  fence,  along 
which  grow  a  number  of  old  chestnut-oak  trees 
with  clusters  of  great  stems  from  single  spread- 
ing stumps  that  are  particularly  gone  to  holes. 

Ordinarily,  if  I  wanted  a  'possum,  about  all  I 
had  to  do  was  to  climb  the  hill,  prod  around  in  the 
holes  until  I  felt  something  soft  that  hissed,  then 
reach  in  and  pull  the  'possum  out. 

This  particular  autumn  the  'possums  had  all 
been  pulled  out,  it  seemed.  One  day  five  came  forth 
from  a  single  stump,  which  seemed  to  exhaust  the 
hillside's  crop  for  the  season,  so  that  I  quite 
ceased  looking  into  the  stumps  for  more. 

Several  times  the  dog  had  started  a  trail  in 
the  woods  at  the  head  of  the  pond.  He  had  gone 
up  the  hill  to  the  rim,  and  halted,  beating  about, 
but  was  always  fooled.  What  was  it?  At  first  I 
took  it  to  be  a  coon ;  for  there  is  no  other  creature 
in  our  woods  so  thoughtful  of  his  steps.  And  a 
coon  whose  range  is  infested  with  dogs  grows  to 
be  astonishingly  careful  and  cunning. 

This  must  be  an  old  coon,  said  I.     Now  an  old 


ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL  93 

coon  in  such  a  country  as  Lupton's  Pond  will  never 
go  straight  home,  nor  take  a  beaten  path.  Out  on 
the  boundaries  of  his  range  he  trots  along  with- 
out minding  how  he  steps.  The  dogs  may  have 
fun  with  his  trail  there.  He  intends  only  that 
they  shall  not  follow  him  clear  home,  that  they 
shall  not  find  his  home-tree,  nor  even  the  vicinity 
of  it. 

So,  as  he  enters  his  own  home  swamp  his  move- 
ments change.  The  dogs  may  be  hard  after  him 
or  not.  If  not  close  behind,  he  knows  by  long  ex- 
perience that  they  may  be  expected  soon,  and 
never  so  far  forgets  his  precious  skin  as  to  leave 
a  clue  pointing  directly  toward  home. 

Instead  lie  trots  along  some  boundary  fence,  or 
right  up  the  middle  of  a  swamp  stream,  leaping 
over  all  the  crossing  logs,  and  coming  out,  likely, 
on  the  bank,  which  is  on  the  side  of  the  stream 
away  from  the  nest-tree.  Farther  down  he  jumps 
back  over  the  stream,  runs  hard  toward  a  big  gum 
tree,  and  from  a  dozen  feet  away  takes  a  flying 
leap,  catching  the  trunk  up  just  out  of  reach  of  the 
keen-nosed  dogs.  On  up  he  goes  a  little  and  leaps 
again,  touching  the  ground  ten  feet  out,  thus  leav- 
ing a  gap,  a  blank,  of  twenty  or  more  feet  in  his 
trail. 


94  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Stream  and  fence  and  tree  have  puzzled  the 
dogs.  But  they  still  hold  on  and  finally  pick  up 
the  scent  beyond  the  gum,  only  to  run  instantly 
into  a  greater  blank  in  the  trail.  The  coon  has 
taken  to  another  tree ;  up  and  out  on  the  limbs  of 
this  to  still  another,  and  on,  like  a  squirrel,  from 
tree  to  tree  for  perhaps  a  hundred  yards,  un- 
til he  comes  to  his  own  high  hollow. 

It  was  such  a  broken  trail  that  I  thought  my 
dog  must  be  following  at  Lupton's  Pond.  She 
could  get  no  farther  than  the  top  of  the  slope. 
Over  the  fence,  under  the  fence,  and  out  far  and 
wide  she  would  go,  but  never  a  sniff  of  the  lost 
scent. 

Then  came  a  light  snow,  and  on  the  white  page 
of  the  hillside  in  his  own  handwriting  was  the 
story  of  a  large  'possum,  who  had  been  along  the 
stream  at  the  head  of  the  pond,  had  gone  up 
the  hill  to  a  fallen  pine,  out  along  this  pine  by  way 
of  the  thick  top  to  the  fence-post,  and  on  along  the 
top  rails. 

The  writing  was  plain  in  the  sticky  snow,  and 
so  was  the  mystery  of  the  broken  trail.  I  hurried 
along  the  fence  and  saw  ahead  that  a  sagging  post 
leaned  in  against  one  of  the  large  chestnut-oaks. 
I  knew  that  my  'possum  was  in  that  tree. 


ON  THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL  95 

Sure  enough,  the  snow  was  brushed  from  the 
post,  there  were  signs  of  feet  on  the  tree  trunk, 
and  down  between  the  twin  boles  was  the  hole, 
smooth,  clean,  and  'possumy.  The  crafty  old  fel- 
low had  squeezed  hard  to  get  in  and  had  left  a 
hair  or  two  on  the  rim  of  his  entrance. 

He  was  tremendously  fat  and  tremendously 
sound  asleep  when  I  pulled  him  out.  But  for  all 
his  fat  and  sleepiness,  he  had  been  cunning 
enough  to  fool  us  for  many  a  night  with  his  fence- 
and  tree-trunk  trail. 


THE  DANCE  IN  THE  ALDEE  SWALE 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    DANCE    IN    THE   ALDER   SWALE 

EARLY  dusk  of  a  cold  March  night  was  fall- 
ing. The  two  red  maple  trees  in  the  little 
alder  swale  beyond  the  pasture  bars  stood  pen- 
ciled on  the  gray  sky.  A  robin  had  been  sing- 
ing, but  now  the  deep  winter  hush  had  crept  back 
over  the  gray  fields. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  hiss  and  a  swift  winnow 
of  wings  close  above  my  head.  I  dodged.  Past 
me,  lined  for  the  swale,  with  a  quick,  twisting 
flight  as  if  fired  from  a  rifle,  sped  a  bird. 

"He's  back!"  I  exclaimed.  "He  escaped!" 
And  through  my  cold,  rain-soaked  world  of  wood 
and  field  and  alder  swale  shot  a  new,  wild  thrill 


100  BEYOND  THE  PASTUEE  BAKS 

of  life.  It  was  a  woodcock  that  had  nested  for 
several  seasons  along  a  slender,  alder-hidden 
stream  about  half  a  mile  from  my  home. 

I  was  not  expecting  him  to  come  back  this 
spring.  When  the  gunning  season  had  opened 
in  July,  at  least  a  score  of  men  knew  that  a  single 
pair  of  woodcocks  had  nested  along  the  stream; 
and  up  and  down,  over  and  over,  one  after  an- 
other those  men  beat  the  swale,  beat  it  by  clump, 
by  tussock,  by  square  foot  for  the  birds,  and  killed 
five.  Four  of  these  were  the  young  of  that  sum- 
mer ;  the  fifth  bird  was  one  of  the  parents. 

The  swale  turned  brown  that  autumn,  and  soon 
lay  silent  and  bleak.  I  could  not  pass  it  during 
the  winter  without  a  feeling  of  anger.  It  was  a 
narrow  strip  of  swampy  ground,  barely  fifty  feet 
across  at  its  widest  part,  and  bordered  by  a 
wooded  hillside  and  by  wide,  tilled  fields.  But 
it  was  all  the  swamp,  all  the  meadow  that  I  had. 
And  that  this  should  be  robbed  of  its  life,  that  all 
my  out-of-doors  within  walking  distance  of  home 
should  never  again  hold  a  woodcock's  nest,  was 
more  than  a  grief.  It  made  me  angry. 

I  had  been  robbed.  Twenty  men  against  six 
woodcocks !  And  they  had  been  eager  to  kill  the 
last  pair  breeding  in  this  last  shrinking  covert, 


THE  DANCE  IN  THE  ALDER  SWALE      101 

and  thus  destroy  the  race  of  woodcocks  here  for- 
ever. 

The  gunners  had  been  eager — but  one  of  the 
birds,  by  some  miracle,  had  escaped.  And  there 
he  went  humming  through  the  cold  March  dusk, 
and  all  my  world  seemed  changed. 

He  would  induce  some  young,  unmated  female 
woodcock  on  her  way  north  to  remain  with  him, 
I  hoped,  and  there  would  yet  be  a  woodcock  home 
in  the  swale. 

At  first  I  feared  lest  this  one  might  be  a  female 
and  might  be  lured  away.  Then  I  feared  that 
this  one  might  be  a  migrant  himself,  who  would 
halt  only  to  feed  that  night  and  go  on.  But  the 
next  day  I  found  him  along  the  stream,  and  I  knew 
by  the  way  he  got  to  cover  that  he  was  on  familiar 
ground  and  meant  to  stay. 

What  a  queer,  comical-looking  bird  he  is!  If 
nature  ever  had  any  feeble-minded  offspring,  you 
would  surely  put  Woodcock  down  for  one.  But  he 
has  his  full  share  of  good  bird  sense.  He  only 
looks  foolish.  The  trouble  with  his  looks  is  partly 
due  to  his  nocturnal  habits.  Night  does  not  seem 
the  birds'  natural  wake-time,  and  those  that  turn 
it  into  day  seem  to  take  on  some  peculiar  appear- 
ance— tlie  owl  his  ridiculous  show  of  wisdom,  and 


102  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

the  woodcock  his  feeble-minded,  foolish  expres- 
sion. 

Yet  it  is  neither  foolishness  with  the  woodcock 
nor  wisdom  with  the  owl,  but  merely  beaks  and 
eyes.  With  eyes  to  the  front  and  a  beak  made  for 
spectacles,  the  owl  looks  very  wise  indeed.  The 
woodcock's  eyes  are  at  the  rear  and  in  the  top  of 
his  head.  If  he  wore  glasses,  they  might  rest  on 
the  back  of  his  neck!  And  how  would  anybody 
look  with  spectacles  upon  the  back  of  his  neck  ? 

This  position  for  the  bird's  eyes,  however,  is 
a  convenient  one.  He  really  needs  to  see  out  of 
the  top  of  his  head  a  part  of  the  time.  His  food 
is  largely  angleworms.  In  order  that  he  may 
catch  these,  nature  provides  him  a  three-inch 
probe  for  a  bill.  Then,  for  his  safety  and  com- 
fort when  sounding  with  his  probe  in  the  mud  for 
worms,  nature  puts  his  eyes  up  on  the  top  of  his 
head,  just  as  a  clam-digger  rolls  up  his  sleeves  in 
order  to  keep  them  out  of  the  mud.  Only  the 
woodcock's  eyes  have  to  stay  up  on  the  back  of  his 
head  all  the  time,  whereas  the  clam-digger  can 
roll  his  sleeves  down. 

In  the  bare,  damp  spots  among  the  alders  and 
along  the  edge  of  the  corn-field,  soon  after  Wood- 
cock arrived,  I  found  his  borings  —  groups  of  a 


THE  DANCE  IN  THE  ALDER  SWALE      103 

dozen  or  more  holes  where,  in  hunting  worms,  he 
had  plunged  his  bill  into  the  earth  up  to  his  eyes 
(up  to  the  place  where  any  other  bird's  eyes 
would  be). 

I  had  always  wondered  how,  when  he  felt  a 
worm,  he  could  open  his  bill  with  it  forced  far 
down  in  stiff  mud,  for  surely  he  does  not  thrust  it 
down  already  open!  Year  after  year  I  kept  on 
wondering  instead  of  trying  to  find  out,  until  one 
day  some  one  showed  me  that  there  was  a  curious 
flexible  tip  to  the  upper  mandible  which  the  bird 
could  move  independently  of  the  rest  of  the  beak, 
and  thus  could  grasp  the  luckless  worm,  though 
deep  in  the  mud. 

We  ought  not  to  expect  of  a  bird  with  such  a 
beak  anything  like  a  song.  How  could  a  bird  with 
a  hooked  beak  or  a  flat  beak  or  a  long  hinged  beak 
sing  I  It  is  not  for  his  singing  that  I  should  miss 
Woodcock  in  the  swale,  but  for  his  dancing.  No 
dance  fires  among  the  Indians'  tepees,  no  bar- 
becue among  the  colored  people's  cabins,  no  folk 
dance  the  world  over  was  ever  wilder  or  more 
frenzied  than  the  dance  of  the  woodcock  among 
the  alders,  night  after  night  in  the  early  spring. 

I  said  that  Woodcock  does  not  sing.  He  does 
harp,  however,  his  own  accompaniment — a  weird 


104  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

wing  music,  that  sets  you  dancing,  too,  as  no  other 
bird  music  you  ever  heard. 

It  is  dusk  in  the  swale.  I  am  sitting  on  the 
root  of  one  of  the  red  maples,  now  in  misty  gar- 
net bloom,  for  it  is  May.  A  wavering  line  of 
piping  hylas  (the  little  tree  frogs)  marks  the 
course  of  the  stream.  Scattered  bird-calls  come 
from  the  covert,  and  out  of  the  deepening  blue 
overhead  falls  a  flock  of  notes,  the  chinks  of  mi- 
grant birds  winging  north. 

Presently,  in  the  grassy  level  across  the  stream, 
sounds  a  clear  peent!  peent!  peent!  I  listen,  half 
rising.  Peent!  peent!  peent!  slow  and  regular; 
then,  bursting  from  cover  with  the  rush  of  a  sky 
rocket,  spins  the  woodcock.  Out  against  the  gray 
horizon  he  sweeps,  and  round  on  the  first  turn  of 
his  soaring  spiral.  The  hum  of  his  wings  fills  the 
swale.  Round  and  round,  swifter  and  swifter, 
the  hum  rising  shrill  as  he  mounts  two  hundred — 
three  hundred — four  hundred  feet  into  the  dusky 
sky,  and  hangs — hangs  a  whirling  blur  in  the  blue, 
and  drops — headlong,  with  a  pitching,  zigzag 
flight  that  has  the  velocity  of  a  bullet,  and  whis- 
tling, as  he  falls,  a  low,  pearly  thrill  of  love  that 
is  smothered  in  the  whir-r-r-r  of  his  alighting 
wings. 


THE  DANCE  IN  THE  ALDER  SWALE      105 

It  is  all  over,  and  I  am  standing,  holding  my 
breath  at  the  strange  performance.  Then  there 
sounds  again  that  preparatory  peent!  pee,nt!  and 
I  await  the  second  burst :  the  looping  spiral  flight 
upward,  the  swift  drop,  and  the  clear,  low  whistle 
of  love.  And  so  the  dance  goes  on  as  the  dark- 
ness thickens,  until  only  a  winnow  of  wings  whirls 
shrill  toward  the  stars,  and  a  sweet,  pearly  whistle 
ripples  down  through  the  gloom. 

While  waiting  here  in  the  twilight  I  see  the  last 
year's  nest  of  a  wood-thrush  in  the  leafless  top  of 
a  slender  sapling.  I  have  not  heard  Woodthrush 
yet  this  spring.  What  if  he  should  not  return  to 
the  strip  of  alder-bottom?  Happily  there  is  no 
immediate  danger.  Yet  I  should  miss  the  wild 
love-dance  of  my  woodcock  almost  as  much  as  I 
should  the  serene  love-song  of  the  thrush.  I 
should  miss  the  woodcock  himself  even  more.  He 
is  so  sly  at  hiding,  and  so  unexpected  when  he 
jumps  up.  There  is  a  thrill  in  his  break  from 
cover  like  the  thrill  one  feels  in  the  strike  and 
whirl  of  a  trout.  One  jumps  almost  out  of  one's 
shoes.  Fifty  thrushes  would  fifty  times  sweeten 
the  swale;  my  single  pair  of  woodcocks  would 
keep  it  all  wild  and  untamed. 

But  they  are  going — gone   already   from   the 


Woodthrush 


THE  DANCE  IN  THE  ALDER  SWALE   107 

swale.  The  woodcock  soon  will  be  among  the  ex- 
tinct birds.  Like  all  birds,  the  woodcocks  have 
many  natural  enemies ;  they  are  one  of  their  own 
worst  enemies  in  building  so  early  that  snows  and 
frosts  destroy  the  eggs,  and  in  places  where  April 
freshets  sweep  them  away.  Yet  in  spite  of  all 
this,  they  would  flourish  were  it  not  for  the  pot- 
hunter. They  might  be  hunted  during  the  weeks 
of  the  fall  migration,  as  some  states  allow,  and 
still  flourish,  but  not  in  July,  before  the  young  are 
on  the  wing,  as  a  few  states  still  allow. 

From  everywhere  over  their  wide  range,  be- 
tween the  Atlantic  coast  and  the  line  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River,  the  woodcocks  are  disappearing. 
Once  gone,  they  can  never  be  restored,  largely  be- 
cause of  their  peculiar  food,  which  makes  them 
migratory,  and  which  cannot  be  supplied  them  as 
grain  can  be  supplied  to  the  quail  and  to  other 
game  birds.  The  dangers  of  their  migrations, 
and  those  which  beset  their  nesting-places,  the 
fewness  of  their  eggs,  their  limited  and  easily 
hunted  haunts,  are  causes  which  are  making  rap- 
idly toward  the  extinction  of  the  woodcocks. 

Already  these  noble  birds  have  gone  from  my 
little  alder  swale.  There  has  been  no  love-dance 
over  the  alders  since  those  of  my  woodcock  many 


108  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

springs  ago.  The  trees  have  been  swept  from  the 
hillside,  the  little  stream  has  shrunken,  and  rush 
and  sedge  are  now  cropped  close  by  the  cattle. 
But  the  birds  were  not  driven  away.  They  were 
shot!  Has  the  new  Federal  law  protecting  mi- 
gratory birds  in  all  the  states  come  soon  enough 
to  save  Woodcock,  I  wonder! 


CHICKAREE  THE  SCOLD 


CHAPTER  X 

CHICKAREE    THE    SCOLD 

(~^\HICKAREE,  the  red  squirrel,  lives  in  every 
VV  patch  of  woods  all  over  the  United  States. 
Out  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  he  goes  by  another 
name,  and  he  has  a  little  darker  color,  but  out 
there  he  has  the  same  curiosity,  the  same  saucy, 
blustery  way  of  scolding  you.  You  can  change 
your  name  and  change  your  coat,  but  you  cannot 
so  easily  change  yourself.  Neither  can  chickaree. 
You  know  him — if  you  know  any  of  the  wild 
people  of  the  woods.  Wild  people,  did  I  say? 
Why,  chickaree  is  anything  but  wild.  He  will  not 
let  you  pull  his  tail ;  but  he  will  sit  up  on  a  limb 
over  your  head  and  make  faces  at  you,  jabber  at 
you,  jerk  his  own  tail,  and  leaning  over  toward 
111 


112  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

you,  tell  you  with  all  his  peppery  might  to  go 
straight  back  home,  for  your  mother  wants  you. 

Oh,  he  is  the  smallest  whirlwind,  the  tiniest  tem- 
pest, the  biggest  little  somebody  in  all  the  knot- 
holes of  the  woods.  He  spills  over  with  loud  talk 
and  conceit.  But  I  like  him,  for  all  of  that.  And 
he  likes  me.  He  is  interested  in  me  every  time 
he  sees  me.  A  gossiping  gadabout,  a  busybody, 
a  tiresome  little  scold,  a  robber  of  birds'  nests  (so 
I  am  told),  a  fighter,  a  nuisance  (when  he  makes 
a  nest  in  my  cellar,  as  he  did  last  winter),  a  thief, 
a — what  shall  I  say  more?  Just  this:  that,  in 
spite  of  all  his  faults,  I  like  chickaree,  and  I  don 't 
want  him  put  in  jail  or  hanged — not  unless  he 
really  does  eat  young  birds  and  suck  eggs. 

They  say  he  does.  Did  you  ever  see  him!  Now 
I  have  seen  old  birds  flying  at  him  as  if  afraid  he 
might  come  near  their  nests,  or  as  if  he  had  robbed 
them  before;  but  here  are  six  or  ten  red  squir- 
rels in  my  yard  and  I  have  never  caught  one  kill- 
ing young  birds.  You  must  watch  him  yourself; 
and  when  you  see  him  do  it  (not  hear  him,  nor 
hear  about  him), — when  you  see  him  robbing  a 
nest  make  him  into  pot-pie  right  off,  then  write 
me  a  letter  telling  me  all  about  what  you  saw 
him  do. 


CHICKAREE  THE  SCOLD  113 

But ' '  I  would  n  't  put  it  past  him, "  as  my  Penn- 
sylvania friends  say.  For  he  is  such  a  fierce  lit- 
tle monster  and  so  greedy  too ! 

Descending  Mount  Washington  by  way  of  the 
carriage-road,  one  day  we  stopped  at  a  little  stone 
bridge  to  eat  our  lunch,  when  chickaree  came  forth 
and  ordered  us  on.  He  immediately  smelled  the 
lunch,  however,  and  grew  silent,  creeping  up 
within  arm's-reach  of  us,  watching  how  we  ate. 
He  showed  no  sign  of  fear,  only  curiosity,  then 
wonder,  then  deep  hunger.  The  smell  of  molasses 
cookies  and  Summit  House  rolls  was  new  to  him, 
new  and  gnawing.  It  made  him  hungry,  so  madly 
hungry  that,  when  I  turned  and  threw  the  lunch- 
box  into  the  dry  bed  of  the  stream,  he  was  into 
that  box  almost  as  soon  as  it  landed. 

His  first  bite  was  of  bread  and  butter.  With- 
out pausing  to  chew  it,  he  seized  the  slice,  scurried 
off  down  a  log,  and  disappeared  in  the  forest. 
"Where  is  he  taking  it!"  we  asked.  Not  far 
away,  for  suddenly  he  popped  over  a  rock,  gave 
us  a  quick  glance,  and  jumped  back  into  the  box 
again. 

There  were  several  cookies  left  in  the  box,  to- 
gether with  some  slices  of  bread,  and  nearly  half 
a  loaf  of  bread  uncut. 


114  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Chickaree  snatched  another  slice,  ran  down  the 
bed  of  the  stream,  over  a  log,  and  out  of  sight. 
Then  I  saw  a  gleam  of  white  bread  in  the  dark, 
thick  woods.  I  could  not  see  chickaree,  but  I 
could  follow  him  by  the  gleaming  white  slice — 
flash-flash-flash-round-and-round-and  round,  up  a 
tall  spruce  tree,  till  I  lost  it  in  the  tall  top. 

We  were  wondering  if  he  would  come  back  for 
another  slice  when,  pop!  he  landed  right  in  the 
middle  of  that  box.  . 

This  time  he  got  hold  of  the  uncut  half -loaf. 

"Whew!"  said  he,  "but  this  is  the  biggest 
chestnut  I  ever  saw!  Quick,  or  some  other  fel- 
low may  see  it !  It  would  kill  me  to  share  all  of 
this  great-big-little  nut  with  anybody!"  And  he 
pitched  upon  it  as  if  to  gulp  it  down  at  a  bite. 

Of  course  he  could  not  swallow  it.  Indeed,  he 
did  not  mean  to  then  and  there.  He  meant  to 
hide  it!  The  greedy  little  pig! 

Tilting  the  loaf  up,  he  fixed  his  long  teeth  into 
the  top  crust,  and  by  dint  of  backing  and  pulling 
got  out  of  the  gully  and  landed  the  loaf  upon  the 
top  of  a  flat  rock.  Unable  to  raise  his  load  clear, 
he  got  behind  it  to  push.  It  was  slow,  hard  work. 
Becoming  more  and  more  anxious,  he  forgot  that 
he  was  on  the  top  of  a  tall  rock,  and  that 


CHICKAREE  THE  SCOLD  115 

the  rock,  in  the  direction  he  was  going,  ended  ab- 
ruptly. 

On  he  pushed  across  the  rough,  mossy  surface, 
inch  by  inch,  until,  catching  a  good  foothold,  he 
gave  a  mighty  shove  and  over  they  went,  he  and 
his  loaf  together,  striking  with  a  beautiful  splash 
in  a  little  pool  of  water  below! 

We  took  a  bit  of  wicked  pleasure  in  his  fall,  as 
we  saw  how  he  scrambled  out  unhurt.  He  came 
out,  however,  still  holding  to  his  loaf.  But  it  was 
thoroughly  soaked  now;  and  as  he  dragged  it  up 
on  shore  the  top  crust  came  off,  letting  the  loaf 
tumble  back  into  the  water.  He  ran  away  to  hide 
the  crust,  then  came  back  quickly  to  the  pool. 

It  was  fun  to  see  him  fish  for  that  soaked  piece 
of  bread.  What  was  the  matter  with  it?  He 
would  catch  it  in  his  paws,  take  it  in  his  mouth, 
scoop  and  pull  and  root,  but  each  time  he  would 
get  only  crumbs.  The  provoking  stuff  had  got 
bewitched !  It  would  not  come  out.  He  could  not 
get  it  out ! 

But  Chickaree  was  not  bewitched.  He  was  an- 
gry— plain  old- Adam  anger.  Up  on  the  log  he 
jumped,  flipped  his  tail,  clawed  the  bark,  and,  with 
a  burst  of  wrath,  gave  the  whole  big  mountain  a 
furious  scolding.  It  was  the  mountain's  fault, 


116  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

he  railed.  After  one  terrible  minute  he  came 
back  to  us,  coughing  and  husky  and  sore  in  his 
throat. 

When  he  reached  the  box,  how  quickly  his  spirit 
changed!  No  April  sky  ever  broke  more  sud- 
denly into  rainy  sunshine  than  Chickaree  on  pick- 
ing up  one  of  the  molasses  cookies.  He  was  sur- 
prised and  delighted.  Never  had  he  tasted  cook- 
ies before!  Birch  catkins  and  beechnuts!  They 
were  flat!  Even  the  tender  terminal  buds  of  the 
pine  would  be  tasteless  now.  And  stale  acorns! 
Dreadful ! 

All  this  we  saw  in  his  countenance  as  he  took 
the  first  mouthful  and  bolted  with  the  cooky.  He 
bolted,  but  he  stopped  short  for  another  bite. 
Then  on  he  went,  only  to  stop  short  for  a  third 
bite ;  started  again,  but  came  to  a  dead  stop  on  the 
end  of  the  log,  and  finished  the  cooky  then  and 
there. 

I  now  went  after  him  to  see  if  I  could  find  where 
he  had  hidden  the  bread.  As  I  stepped  upon  the 
log,  he  turned  and  came  down  it  toward  me. 

He  drew  near ;  walked  over  my  foot  and  smelled 
of  me.  Cookies!  Where?  He  sniffed  and 
sniffed;  then  catching  the  odor  of  the  cookies  on 
the  hand  hanging  at  my  side,  he  stood  up  to  get  a 


CHICKAREE  THE  SCOLD  117 

bite,  when  the  foolish  hand  twitched.  That  was 
enough.  The  hand  had  moved.  He  would  not  ap- 
proach that  hand  again. 

I  went  on  in  and  found  the  two  slices,  but  not 
the  crust.  One  of  the  slices  was  high  up  in  the 
top  of  a  spruce,  the  other  in  some  moss  behind  a 
stump. 

Perhaps  these  were  temporary  hiding-places, 
chosen  hurriedly,  from  which,  later  on,  he  would 
collect  his  bread  to  store  in  some  secret  hollow  for 
the  winter.  I  am  not  certain,  however,  that 
Chickaree  has  a  barn  or  any  winter  storehouse. 
I  have  often  found  pignuts  stored  in  old  tree- 
hollows.  Still  they  were  always  shells  only,  as  if 
Chickaree  had  simply  taken  and  eaten  them  there. 

Yet,  more  than  once  I  have  caught  Chickaree 
stuffing  hollow  rails  with  corn.  Perhaps  he  in- 
tended to  keep  these  stores  against  the  winter.  I 
suspect  from  what  I  know  of  Chickaree,  that  it 
was  more  mischief  and  itching  for  occupation  than 
thought  for  his  coming  needs. 

He  never  finished  the  stuffing.  Long  before  the 
cavities  were  full  the  little  scatterbrain  would  be 
off  at  some  other  active  but  useless  task,  leaving 
his  stores  to  be  found  and  devoured  by  the  jays  or 
the  mice.  Chickaree  will  never  remember  that  the 


118  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

second  rail  from  the  bottom,  in  the  section  between 
the  stump  and  the  sassafras-tree,  holds  a  pint  of 
golden  corn. 

All  wild  animals  are  mere  children.  They  all 
love  to  put  things  into  holes.  They  all  must  be 
busy — if  with  nothing  else  than  their  tails.  But 
they  rarely  work. 

I  knew  a  chickaree,  who  lived  in  a  little  glen  by 
the  side  of  Thorn  Mountain  Cabin  in  the  White 
Mountains,  and  who  began  in  August,  two  months 
before  the  end  of  the  harvest,  to  pick  and  store 
green  birch  catkins.  You  cannot  store  them  when 
they  are  dead  ripe,  perhaps,  for  they  may  fall  to 
pieces.  As  I  watched  him,  however,  I  concluded 
he  was  doing  the  work  just  for  the  fun  of  it.  He 
must  do  something;  and  this  tree,  full  of  little 
cones,  looked  to  him  just  as  a  box  of  buttons  looks 
to  a  baby. 

He  owned  this  great  single  birch  at  the  head 
of  the  glen.  He  lived  in  it  alone,  and  made  war 
against  all  birds  or  beasts  that  came  near. 

I  have  seen  him  chase  a  junco  up  and  down  and 
across  the  top  until  the  bird  flew  off.  A  flock  of 
them  settling  among  the  branches  drove  him  fran- 
tic. I,  too,  when  I  came  near  called  down  his 
wrath.  But  after  a  week  of  daily  visits  I  was  al- 


CHICKAREE  THE  SCOLD  119 

lowed  to  stretch  out  upon  the  moss  beneath  the 
low,  wide  limbs  and  watch  him  store. 

His  morning  task  was  to  store  about  a  pint  of 
catkins  from  this  yellow  birch  in  a  secret  crib 
among  the  ferns  of  the  glen.  Up  and  down  the 
tree  he  would  race,  a  round  trip  every  three  min- 
utes, loaded  with  a  single  catkin  each  time  down. 
After  storing  about  thirty  he  would  take  one  to 
a  certain  bottom  limb,  and  here,  close  up  against 
the  leaning  tree  trunk,  safely  hidden  from  over- 
head enemies,  he  would  begin  breakfast,  scatter- 
ing the  winged  seeds  down  in  a  thin,  flaky  shower 
upon  me  underneath  as  he  ate  the  catkin.  He 
always  ate  squatting  close  upon  this  same  limb 
and  backed  hard  up  against  the  trunk.  The 
ground  below  was  snowed  under  with  the  scales 
which  had  fallen  as  he  husked  the  seeds. 

The  red  squirrels'  beds  are  big,  bulky  nests, 
built  mostly  of  cedar  bark,  stripped  fine  and  mat- 
ted into  an  irregular  mass  the  size  of  a  hat.  The 
doorways  open  from  the  bottoms  or  sides,  leav- 
ing the  roofs  without  a  crack  and  perfectly  water- 
proof. 

Sometimes  an  abandoned  crow's  nest  is  taken 
for  the  foundation.  In  this  old  nest  a  deep,  soft 
bed  of  newly  shredded  bark  is  made,  and  a  thatch 


120  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

of  the  same  material  laid  on  above.  Such  a  nest 
will  not  rock  and  sway  when  the  winds  are  high, 
as  the  gray  squirrel's  often  will;  for  the  crows 
do  not  build  out  in  the  tips  of  the  branches,  but 
close  up  to  the  trunks.  It  is  a  warm,  safe  nest 
in  the  coldest  of  winter  storms. 

Chickaree  is  a  good  climber,  running  the  tree- 
tops,  scampering  along  their  dizzy  roads  almost 
as  fast  as  one  can  run  on  the  ground  beneath.  It 
makes  me  hold  my  breath  to  see  him  skip  along 
a  slender  limb,  jump  to  a  second,  race  out  to  its 
tip,  and  leap — clearing  fifteen  feet — to  catch  the 
very  ends  of  another  limb  swaying  fifty  feet  above 
in  the  air. 

But  the  thing  he  can  do  best  of  all  is  scold! 
Let  me  go  out  on  the  hillside  here,  and  one  of  the 
little  wretches  will  climb  a  tree  and  warn  me  to 
go  back  to  the  house.  He  is  instantly  joined  by 
several  others,  and  together  overhead  they  follow 
me,  disputing  every  step  with  me,  swaggering, 
growling,  and  pouring  forth  a  torrent  of  threat 
and  abuse  until  they  are  wheezy  and  out  of  breath. 

It  is  bluster,  most  of  it;  they  love  to  make  a 
noise.  If  I  drop  down  at  the  foot  of  a  low-limbed 
pine,  they  gather  round,  for  a  look  at  me,  close  to. 
Once  I  remember  that  a  chipmunk  joined  them. 


He  would  take  one 
to  a  certain  bot- 
tom limb 


122  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Then  came  an  inquisitive  little  chickadee,  behind 
whom  one  of  the  squirrels,  now  only  a  bundle  of 
curiosity,  crept  down  within  reach  of  me,  flattened 
himself  to  the  trunk,  and  began  to  talk  to  himself 
about  me  in  little  broken  snorts,  sniffs,  coughs,  and 
snickers,  punctuating  every  snicker  and  cough  and 
sniff  and  snort  with  quick,  short  jerks  of  his  tail. 
What  did  he  say  about  me  I  Making  fun  of  me, 
perhaps,  because  I  could  not  climb  trees  and  bite 
off  pine-buds.  I  don 't  know.  But  I  do  know  this, 
that,  whatever  he  said,  I  enjoyed  having  him  near 
me,  for  I  am  sure  that  he  half  enjoyed  my  being 
near  him.  And  I  like  the  hillside  better  for  hi's 
sake.  It  would  often  be  dull  and  silent  if  he  were 
gone,  for  he  is  a  sociable  little  scamp,  if  he  is  a  big 
scold. 


A  LESSON  IN  NATURAL  HISTORY 


CHAPTER  XI 

A   LESSON    IN    NATURAL   HISTORY 

WHEN  I  was  a  boy,  well  started  in  my 
"teens,"  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  an 
old  naturalist,  John  W.  P.  Jenks,  who  taught  me 
a  most  interesting  and  most  valuable  lesson  in 
natural  history.  I  think  you  ought  to  have  the 
lesson  too,  though  it  may  be  that  you  do  not  need 
it  so  much  as  I  did. 

The  old  naturalist,  who  was  also  a  college  pro- 
fessor, had  given  to  the  Institute,  where  I  was 
going  to  school,  a  very  large  collection  of  mounted 
birds,  shells,  snakes — in  short,  a  whole  natural 
history  museum.  Now,  it  happened  that  I  knew 
a  little  bit  about  birds,  and  how  to  mount  them, 
so  I  was  put  to  work  naming  them,  and  setting 

125 


126  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

them  up  in  the  glass  show-cases  of  the  Institute 
museum. 

It  was  while  I  was  doing  this  that  the  old  nat- 
uralist came  to  visit  the  Institute  in  order  to  see 
how  we  were  treating  his  birds  and  beasts. 

I  was  greatly  excited.  I  had  read  about  great 
naturalists — Linnaeus,  and  Gilbert  White,  Pro- 
fessor Agassiz,  John  James  Audubon,  Thoreau, 
and  old  Tom  Edwards — but  I  had  never  seen  one 
alive,  much  more,  spoken  with  one.  Great  nat- 
uralists did  not  often  come  to  southern  New  Jer- 
sey. Yet  here  was  one  under  the  same  roof  with 
me,  and  who  would  be  coming  in  at  the  museum 
door  any  moment.  I  could  hardly  work  for  ex- 
citement. 

For  I  had  been  told  all  about  him,  how  he  was 
the  friend  of  Agassiz,  how  he  had  hunted  birds 
and  snakes  all  over  the  world,  how  he  had  been 
bitten  by  centipeds,  and  poisoned  with  the  arsenic 
used  in  curing  skins,  how  he  had  been  the  first 
white  man  to  explore  Lake  Okechobee  in  Florida, 
and,  most  wonderful  of  all,  how  he  had  written 
a  book !  Yes,  and  I  had  a  copy  of  that  book  and 
had  read  it  through  and  through. 

Of  course  I  was  excited,  and  happy,  and, 
though  I  did  not  dare  say  it  to  myself,  I  felt  also 


A  LESSON  IN  NATURAL  HISTORY        127 

very  important.  And  you  would  have  felt  so  too, 
if  naturalists  had  always  been  the  most  interest- 
ing men  in  the  world  to  you.  Why,  I  had  read  the 
life  of  John  James  Audubon  until  I  knew  it 
by  heart.  There  was  a  picture  of  Audubon  in  the 
"Life"  I  read  that  showed  him  with  long  hair  to 
his  shoulders,  and  a  rolling  shirt  collar  wide  open 
at  the  throat,  that  seemed  to  me  very  fitting. 
So  I  asked  mother  to  cut  my  shirt  collars  low — 
just  like  his ;  and  I  tried  to  let  my  hair  grow  long 
— just  like  his.  Mother  did  very  well  with  the 
collars;  but  I  got  on  terribly  with  the  hair;  for 
it  grew  up,  not  down,  and  looked  about  as  curly 
as  a  load  of  hay. 

But  I  was  a  small  boy  in  those  days  of  collars 
and  hair.  I  was  fully  three  years  older  the  morn- 
ing when  Professor  Jenks,  the  naturalist,  came 
into  the  Institute  museum,  with  a  strange,  quick 
scuff  and  shuffle  (due  to  paralysis  caused  by  the 
arsenic  used  in  curing  the  skins!)  and  shook  me 
by  the  hand.  If  anything  had  been  lacking  in  the 
great  man  it  would  have  been  made  more  than 
good  by  that  shuffle — arsenic  in  his  very  bones ! 

He  was  a  short,  stout  man,  past  seventy,  with 
snow-white  hair  and  beard,  a  keen,  kindly  face 
that  made  one  think  of  Christmas,  with  a  quick- 


128  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

ness  and  energy  to  all  his  movements  (including 
his  shuffle)  that  seemed  to  set  everything  about 
him  in  motion. 

Up  and  down  among  the  glass  cases  we  went, 
his  voice  full  of  the  pleasure  he  felt  at  seeing  his 
work  once  more  established,  his  suggestions 
falling  thick  and  fast  as  we  passed  from  group  to 
group,  until,  turning  upon  me  suddenly,  he  said: 

4 'Go  out  and  get  a  bird.  I  must  give  you  a  les- 
son in  mounting." 

Yes,  things  like  this  have  happened  often 
enough  in  books,  but  when  before  did  a  boy  away 
down  in  the  woods  of  southern  New  Jersey  have 
the  great  man  of  his  dreams  appear  suddenly 
before  him,  and  coming  instantly  to  his  heart's 
one  deep  desire,  send  him  out  to  get  a  bird  for  a 
lesson  in  mounting? 

Strange  things  happen  to  boys  and  girls  in 
books,  I  say.  You  have  read  about  them.  But  do 
you  know,  stranger  things  than  the  things  of  books 
keep  happening  all  the  time  to  boys  and  girls  out- 
side of  books,  to  boys  and  girls  in  the  country, 
away  in  the  heart  of  the  woods ;  and  to  boys  and 
girls  in  the  city,  away  in  the  heart  of  the  slums? 
This  was  surely  a  very  strange  thing  to  happen 
to  me. 


A  LESSON  IN  NATURAL  HISTORY        129 

I  hurried  out  into  the  grove  for  the  bird,  and 
was  gone  about  fifteen  minutes,  when  I  returned, 
bringing  a  yellow-billed  cuckoo.  As  I  laid  it  be- 
fore the  old  naturalist  I  ventured  to  say  that  it 
was  the  only  bad  bird  I  knew,  except  the  cow-bird 
and  the  English  sparrow. 

The  face  of  the  old  naturalist  darkened  with 
disapproval  at  sight  of  the  bird  and  still  more  at 
my  words. 

"No!  no!"  he  replied.  "That's  one  of  the 
most  useful  birds  we  have.  You  should  have 
brought  an  English  sparrow. 

"Notice  now  when  I  open  the  gizzard  how  this 
bird  has  befriended  you.  His  gizzard  will  be 
lined — will  be  stuck  full  of  caterpillar  hairs,  as 
full  as  a  piece  of  plush  with  pile. ' ' 

And  while  he  had  been  speaking  the  delicate 
skin  had  been  removed  without  a  drop  of  blood  or 
a  broken  feather !  And  there  before  my  wonder- 
ing eyes  was  the  gizzard,  turned  inside  out,  and 
stuck  as  full  of  caterpillar  hairs  as  the  caterpillar 
himself ! 

A  "bad"  bird?  No,  rather,  as  the  old  natural- 
ist said,  it  is  one  of  the  most  useful  birds  we  have. 
It  eats  the  hairy  caterpillars  that  most  other 
birds  refuse ;  and  in  June  when  the  canker  worms 


130  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

begin  to  infest  the  fruit  trees  the  cuckoo  comes 
into  the  orchard  as  if  sent  to  save  the  fruit 
crop. 

Watch  him,  how  quietly  and  thoroughly  he 
does  his  work.  Well  hidden  among  the  branches, 
he  cocks  his  head  under  this  bunch  of  leaves,  then 
under  that;  peeks  here,  then  there,  and  when  he 
sees  the  worm  flutters  up  and  picks  it  off,  then 


He  eats  caterpillars 

lights  upon  another  branch  for  another  search, 
and  so  on  until  he  has  gone  all  over  and  cleaned 
up  the  tree. 

He  is  a  most  useful  bird,  and  also  a  most  inter- 
esting bird,  and  one  that  you  can  easily  learn  to 
know.  He  is  very  slender — the  slenderest  of  our 


A  LESSON  IN  NATURAL  HISTORY        131 

birds.  When  you  see  a  drab  or  dark  brownish 
bird,  a  little  longer  than  the  robin,  and  very  slen- 
der for  his  length,  put  him  down  for  a  cuckoo. 
If  his  tail  seems  the  longest  part  of  him  and 
seems  likely  to  fall  off  as  he  flies;  and  if  he  flies 
with  a  loose,  dangling,  dawdling  flight  from  tree 
to  tree;  and  if  he  calls  kow,  kow,  kow,  kow-kow- 
kow,  rapidly  and  loudly,  then  it  is  surely  a  cuckoo. 
The  only  bird  that  you  might  confuse  him  with 
on  the  wing  is  the  brown  thrasher;  but  the 
thrasher  is  a  lighter  brown,  with  a  rounded,  spot- 
ted breast,  and  flies  with  a  sure,  strong  flight; 
whereas  the  cuckoo  flutters  and  wavers  uncer- 
tainly along  like  some  huge  moth. 

And  if  you  find  his  nest  you  will  know  that,  too, 
from  any  other  bird's,  because  it  is  the  flimsiest 
criss-cross  of  sticks  that  you  will  ever  see  with 
blue  eggs  in  it.  The  turtle  dove's  nest  is  a  poor 
shift  also,  hardly  fit  to  be  called  a  nest,  but  it  is 
better  than  the  cuckoo's;  besides  it  has  two  white 
eggs  in  it,  not  blue. 

Some  of  the  birds,  the  whippoorwill,  the  murre, 
and  others  lay  their  eggs  on  the  bare  ground  or 
on  the  rocks,  as  the  case  may  be,  without  a  nest. 
The  cuckoo,  however,  is  a  tree  bird,  and  needs  a 
nest,  but  builds  the  poorest  nest  I  know.  Still 


132  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

this  is  better  than  the  mean  shift  of  the  English 
cuckoo;  for  this  cousin  cuckoo  of  England  not 
only  builds  no  nest,  but  slips  around  and  when 
nobody  is  looking,  leaves  its  eggs  in  other  birds' 
nests,  and  goes  off  care-free!  It  will  do  still 
worse :  it  will  eat  the  eggs  of  the  other  bird ;  leave 
its  own  egg  in  the  empty  nest,  and  thus  fool  the 
foster  mother,  after  robbing  her,  into  hatching 
out  and  feeding  a  child  that  does  not  belong  to 
her. 

Our  own  cuckoo  is  not  so  bad  as  that,  although 
his  lazy  nest  looks  as  if  he  would  like  to  be,  or  in- 
deed, might  be,  if  he  did  keep  watch  on  his  lazy, 
makeshift  habits.  And  it  is  said,  by  those  who 
may  know,  too,  that  our  cuckoo  steals  other  birds' 
eggs,  and  sometimes  lays  its  own  eggs  in  robins' 
and  catbirds'  nests. 

Now  our  cow-bird  (one  of  the  blackbird  family) 
does  that,  but  I  have  never  found  our  cuckoo  at  it. 
He  may,  sometimes ;  still  I  have  never  seen  him ; 
whereas  I  have  often  found  him  with  his  own  nest 
and  eggs — very  strong  evidence  in  his  favor.  We 
are  all  quick  to  see  evil,  and  to  remember  ill.  A 
bad  name  is  hard  to  bury.  I  think  our  cuckoo  suf- 
fers for  the  evil  done  by  his  cousin  over  seas ;  for 
surely  it  was  of  this  foreign  cuckoo  that  I  was 


A  LESSON  IN  NATURAL  HISTORY        133 

thinking  when  I  shot  the  cuckoo  Tor  the  old  nat- 
uralist  and  called  it  a  "bad"  bird. 

It  is  not  a  bad  bird,  but  a  good  and  useful  and 
interesting,  and,  somehow,  to  me,  a  very  mysteri- 
ous bird.  It  is  not  a  singer,  yet  I  love  to  listen  to 
its  notes — its  tut-tut,  tut-tut,  tut-tut,  tut-tut, 
cl-uck-cl-uck,  kow,  kow,  kow,  kotv!  For  loud  as 
they  are,  they  are  strangely  soft,  floating  notes 
that  come  from  nowhere  in  particular.  They 
seem  to  dangle  and  dawdle  and  wave  and  flutter 
through  the  air,  just  as  the  bird  himself  seems  to 
on  the  wing.  He  is  not  the  bird  of  early  spring,  as 
the  English  cuckoo  is,  so  we  do  not  write  verses  to 
him  as  the  poets  of  England  have  done  for  hun- 
dreds of  years.  Our  cuckoo  is  the  bird  of  mid- 
summer, and  his  soft,  spirit-like  kow,  kow,  koiv, 
sounding  out  on  the  hot,  close  days  of  July  and 
August  says  rain,  rain,  rain!  And  so  he  is  called 
the  ''rain-crow." 

I  have  never  known  him  to  bring  the  rain  with 
his  call,  as  the  tree-toad  seems  to  bring  it  with 
his  quavering  voice.  But  I  have  known  him  to 
eat  worms ;  and  I  did  see  the  gizzard  of  the  one  I 
shot  stuck  full  of  caterpillar  hairs ;  and  I  do  know 
now  that  he  is  not  a  "bad"  bird.  And  one  thing 
more  I  know  (I  learned  it  that  day  in  the  lesson 


134  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

with  the  old  naturalist) — and  it  is  this:  the  best 
way  to  learn  about  cuckoos  is  to  watch  them  with 
your  own  eyes  and  listen  to  them  with  your  own 
ears  and  to  beware  of  hearsay. 


CALICO  AND  THE  KITTENS 


CHAPTER  XII 

CALICO   AND   THE    KITTENS 

ONE  spring  day  I  found  myself  the  sole  help 
of  two  blind,  naked  infants — as  near  a  real 
predicament  as  a  man  could  well  get.  What  did 
it  matter  that  they  had  fur  and  long  tails  and 
paws?  They  were  infants  just  the  same;  and 
any  kind  of  an  infant  on  the  hands  of  a  man  is 
dreadful. 

As  I  looked  at  the  two  little  things  in  the 
grass,  a  feeling  of  helplessness  quite  overcame 
me.  The  way  those  baby  squirrels  squirmed  and 
shivered  and  squeaked  somehow  made  me  squirm 
and  shiver  down  to  my  very  knees.  I  felt  sick 
and  foolish,  for  what  was  I  to  do  with  them! 
One  thing  I  could  not  do,  and  that  was  kill  them. 

137 


138  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Both  of  their  parents  were  dead.  Their  loose 
leaf-nest  up  in  the  white  oak  tree  had  been  rid- 
dled with  shot.  I  had  climbed  up  and  found 
them;  I  had  brought  them  down;  I  must— feed 
them ! 

But  how  could  I  feed  them?  Nipples,  quills, 
spoons — none  of  them  would  fit  these  mites  of 
mouths.  What  a  miserable  mother  I  was !  How 
poorly  equipped  my  woodshed  for  foundlings! 
They  were  dying  for  lack  of  food;  and  as  they 
pawed  about  and  whimpered  in  my  hands  I  de- 
voutly wished  the  shot  had  mercifully  ended  their 
little  lives  too.  And  I  must  say  that  I  was 
tempted  to  put  them  out  of  their  misery  at  once. 

But  I  started  homeward  with  them.  As  I  could 
see  no  other  way  I  determined  to  rear  those  squir- 
rels, if  it  could  be  done.  As  I  went  along  I  re- 
membered— and  it  came  to  me  with  a  shock — that 
one  of  my  neighbor's  cats  had  a  new  batch  of  kit- 
tens. They  were  only  a  few  days  old.  Might  not 
Calico,  their  mother,  be  induced  to  adopt  the 
squirrels  ? 

Nothing  could  be  more  absurd.  The  kittens 
were  three  times  larger  than  the  squirrels.  Even 
had  they  been  the  same  size,  did  I  think  the  old 
three-colored  cat  could  be  fooled?  that  she  might 


CALICO  AND  THE  KITTENS  139 

not  know  a  kitten  of  hers  from  some  other  moth- 
er's— 'squirrel?  I  was  desperate  indeed.  Calico 
was  a  hunter.  She  had  eaten  more  gray  squir- 
rels, perhaps,  than  I  had  ever  seen.  She  would 
think  I  had  been  foraging  for  her — the  mother 
of  seven  green  kittens! — and  would  take  my 
charges  as  titbits.  Still  I  was  determined  to  try. 

My  neighbor's  kittens  were  enough  and  to 
spare.  One  of  Calico's  last  year's  family  still 
waited  a  good  home;  and  here  were  seven  more 
to  be  cared  for.  Might  not  two  of  these  be  spir- 
ited away,  far  away;  the  two  squirrels  substi- 
tuted, and  the  old  cat  be  none  the  wiser? 

I  went  home  by  way  of  my  neighbor's,  and 
found  Calico  in  the  basement  curled  up  asleep 
with  her  babies.  She  roused  and  purred  ques- 
tioningly  as  we  bent  over  the  basket,  and  watched 
with  concern,  but  with  no  anxiety,  as  two  of  her 
seven  were  lifted  out  and  put  inside  a  hat  upon  a 
table.  She  was  perfectly  used  to  having  her  kit- 
tens handled.  True,  strange  things  had  hap- 
pened to  them.  But  that  was  long  ago ;  and  there 
had  been  so  very  many  kittens !  How  could  any 
one  mother,  and  she  only  a  cat  mother,  remember 
about  them  all?  She  trusted  us — with  an  ear 
pricked  and  eyes  watchful,  however.  But  they 


140  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

were  safe  inside  the  hat;  and  in  a  prideful,  self- 
conscious  mother  way  she  began  to  wash  the  five. 
She  had  seen  her  kittens  put  into  the  hat,  but  now 
some  one  stood  between  her  and  the  hat  when 
the  kittens  were  lifted  out  and  the  squirrels  were 
put  in  their  place.  Calico  did  not  see  what  was 
done.  For  a  time  she  thought  no  more  about  the 
two  missing  babies;  she  was  busy  washing  and 
showing  the  others.  By  and  by  it  began  to  look  as 
though  she  had  forgotten  that  there  were  more 
than  five.  She  could  not  count.  But  most  moth- 
ers can  number  their  children,  even  if  they  can- 
not count,  and  soon  Calico  began  to  fidget,  look- 
ing up  at  the  hat,  which  the  hungry,  motherless 
squirrels  kept  rocking.  Then  she  leaped  out  upon 
the  floor,  purring,  and  bounded  upon  the  table, 
going  straight  to  the  young  squirrels. 

There  certainly  was  an  expression  of  surprise 
and  mystification  on  her  face  as  she  saw  the 
change  that  had  come  over  those  kittens.  They 
had  shrunk  in  size  and  faded  from  two  or  three 
bright  colors  to  a  single  pale  pink!  She  looked 
again  and  sniffed  them.  Their  odor  had  changed, 
too!  She  turned  to  the  watchers  about  the  table 
as  if  asking  them  to  explain  it  all,  but  they  said 
nothing.  She  hardly  knew  what  to  think.  She 


CALICO  AND  THE  KITTENS  141 

was  half  inclined  to  leave  them  and  was  turning 
to  go  back  to  the  basket,  when  one  of  the  squirrels 
whimpered — a  genuine,  universal  baby  whimper. 
That  settled  it.  She  was  a  mother,  and  whatever 
else  these  things  in  the  hat  might  be,  they  were 
babies.  That  was  enough,  especially  as  she 
needed  just  this  much  baby  here  in  the  hat  to  make 
good  what  was  lacking  in  the  basket. 

With  a  soft,  caressing  purr  she  stepped  gently 
into  the  hat,  took  one  of  the  squirrels  by  the  neck, 
brought  it  to  the  edge  of  the  table,  and  laid  it 
down  for  a  firmer  hold ;  then  sprang  lightly  to  the 
floor.  Over  to  the  basket  she  walked  and  dropped 
it  tenderly  among  her  other  babies.  Then,  hav- 
ing brought  the  remaining  one  and  deposited  that 
with  the  same  mother-care,  she  got  into  the  bas- 
ket herself  and  curled  down  contentedly — her 
heart  all  whole. 

And  this  is  how  strange  a  thing  mother-love  is ! 
The  performance  was  scarcely  believable.  Could 
she  be  so  love-blind  as  not  to  see  what  they  were 
and  that  she  could  eat  them!  But  when  she  be- 
gan to  lick  the  little  interlopers  with  her  tongue, 
and  cuddle  them  down  to  their  dinner,  as  if  they 
were  her  own  genuine  kittens,  there  could  be  no 
more  fear  of  her  eating  them. 


142  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

The  squirrels  do  not  know  to  this  day  that  Cal- 
ico is  not  their  real  mother.  From  the  first  they 
took  her  mother's  milk  and  mother's  love  as  right- 
fully and  thanklessly  as  the  kittens,  growing,  not 
like  the  kittens  at  all,  but  into  the  most  normal  of 
squirrels,  round  and  fat  and  splendid-tailed. 

Calico  clearly  recognized  some  difference  be- 
tween the  two  kinds  of  kittens,  but  what  differ- 
ence always  puzzled  her.  She  would  clean  up  a 
kitten  and  comb  it  slick,  then  turn  to  one  of  the 
squirrels  and  wash  it,  but  rarely,  if  ever,  complet- 
ing the  work  because  of  some  strange  un-catlike 
antic.  As  the  squirrels  grew  older  they  also  grew 
friskier,  and  soon  took  the  washing  as  the  signal 
for  a  frolic.  As  well  try  to  wash  a  bubble.  They 
were  bundles  of  live  springs,  twisting  out  of  her 
paws,  dancing  over  her  back,  leaping,  kicking, 
tumbling  as  she  had  never  seen  a  kitten  do  in  all 
her  richly  kittened  experience. 

I  don't  know  why,  but  Calico  was  certainly 
fonder  of  these  two  freaks  than  of  her  own  nor- 
mal children.  Long  after  the  latter  were  weaned 
she  nursed  and  mothered  the  squirrels.  I  have 
frequently  seen  them  let  into  the  kitchen  when  the 
old  cat  was  there,  and  the  moment  they  got 
through  the  door  they  would  rush  toward  her, 


CALICO  AND  THE  KITTENS  143 

dropping  chestnuts  or  cookies  by  the  way.  She 
in  turn  would  hurry  to  meet  them  with  a  little 
purr  of  greeting  full  of  joy  and  affection.  They 
were  shamefully  big  for  such  doings.  The  kittens 
had  quit  it  long  ago.  Calico  herself,  after  a  while, 
came  to  feel  the  impropriety  of  nursing  these  two 
strapping  young  things,  and  in  a  weak,  indulgent 
way  tried  to  stop  it.  But  the  squirrels  were  per- 
sistent and  would  not  go  about  their  business  at 
all  with  an  ordinary  cuff.  She  would  put  them 
off,  run  away  from  them,  slap  them,  and  make  be- 
lieve to  bite ;  but  not  until  she  did  bite,  and  sharply 
too,  would  they  be  off.  •' 

All  this  seemed  very  strange  and  unnatural ;  yet 
a  stranger  thing  happened  one  day,  when  Calico 
brought  in  to  her  family  a  full-grown  gray  squirrel 
which  she  had  caught  in  the  woods.  She  laid  it 
down  on  the  floor  and  called  the  kittens  and  squir- 
rels to  gather  around.  They  came,  and  as  the 
young  squirrels  sniffed  at  the  dead  one  on  the 
floor  there  was  hardly  a  mark  of  difference  in 
their  appearance.  It  might  have  been  one  of  Cali- 
co's  own  nurslings  that  lay  there  dead,  so  far  as 
any  one  save  Calico  could  see.  And  with  her  the 
difference,  I  think,  was  more  of  smell  than  of 
sight.  But  she  knew  her  own;  and  though  she 


144  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

often  found  her  two  out  among  the  trees  of  the 
yard,  she  never  was  mistaken,  nor  for  an  instant 
made  as  if  to  hurt  them. 

Yet  they  could  not  have  been  more  entirely 
squirrel  had  their  own  squirrel  mother  nurtured 
them.  Calico's  milk  and  love  went  all  to  cat  in 
her  own  kittens,  and  all  to  squirrel  in  these  that 
she  adopted.  No  single  hair  of  theirs  turned 
from  its  squirrel-gray  to  any  one  of  Calico's  three 
colors;  no  single  squirrel  trait  became  the  least 
bit  catlike. 

Indeed,  as  soon  as  the  squirrels  could  run  about 
they  forsook  the  clumsy-footed  kittens  under  the 
stove  and  scampered  up  back  of  the  hot-water 
tank,  where  they  built  a  nest.  Whenever  Calico 
entered  the  kitchen  purring,  out  would  pop  their 
heads,  and  down  they  would  come,  understanding 
the  mother  language  as  well  as  the  kittens,  and 
usually  beating  the  kittens  to  the  mother's  side. 

So  far  from  teaching  them  to  climb  and  build 
nests  behind  water-tanks,  their  foster-mother 
never  got  over  her  astonishment  at  it.  All  they 
needed  from  her,  all  they  needed  and  would  have 
received  from  their  own  squirrel  mother,  was 
nourishment  and  protection  until  their  teeth  and 
legs  grew  strong.  Wits  were  born  with  them ;  ex- 


She  often  found  her  two  out  among  the  trees 


146  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

perience  was  sure  to  come  to  them ;  and  with  wits 
and  experience  there  is  nothing  known  among 
squirrels  of  their  kind  that  these  two  would  not 
learn  for  themselves. 

And  there  was  not  much  known  to  squirrels  that 
these  two  did  not  know,  apparently  without  even 
learning.  As  they  grew  in  size  they  increased  ex- 
ceedingly in  naughtiness,  and  were  banished 
shortly  from  the  kitchen  to  an  ell  or  back  wood- 
shed. They  celebrated  this  change  in  their  for- 
tunes by  dropping  some  hickory  nuts  into  a  rubber 
boot  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  then  gnawing  a  hole 
through  the  toe  of  the  boot  in  order  to  extract  the 
hidden  nuts.  Was  it  mischief  that  led  them  to 
gnaw  through  rather  than  go  down  the  top!  Or 
did  something  get  stuffed  into  the  top  of  the  boot 
after  the  nuts  were  dropped  in?  And  did  the 
squirrels  remember  that  the  nuts  were  in  there,  or 
did  they  smell  them  through  the  rubber? 

The  squirrels  took  possession  of  the  woodshed 
for  the  winter.  Their  first  nest  had  been  built 
behind  the  hot-water  tank.  They  knew  how  to 
build  without  any  teaching.  But  knowing  how  is 
not  all  there  is  to  know  about  building;  knowing 
where  is  very  important,  and  this  they  had  to 
learn. 


CALICO  AND  THE  KITTENS  147 

Immediately  on  coming  to  the  woodshed  the 
squirrels  began  their  winter  nest,  a  big,  bulky, 
newspaper  affair,  which  they  placed  up  in  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  shed  directly  under  the 
shingles.  Here  they  slept  till  late  in  the  fall. 
This  was  the  shaded  side,  and  the  most  exposed 
corner,  of  the  whole  house ;  but  all  went  well  until 
one  night  when  the  weather  suddenly  turned  very 
cold.  A  strong  wind  blew  from  the  northwest 
hard  upon  the  squirrels'  nest. 

The  next  day  there  was  great  activity  in  the 
woodshed — a  scampering  of  lively  feet,  that  be- 
gan early  in  the  morning  and  continued  far  toward 
noon.  The  squirrels  were  moving.  They  gath- 
ered up  their  newspaper  nest  and  carried  it — 
diagonally — across  the  shed  from  the  shaded 
northwest  to  the  sunny  southeast  corner,  where 
they  rebuilt  and  slept  snug  throughout  the  winter. 

Calico  did  not  teach  them  this;  neither  would 
their  own  squirrel  mother  have  taught  them. 
They  knew  how,  to  begin  with.  They  knew  where 
after  one  night  of  experience,  which  in  this  case 
had  to  be  a  night  of  shivers. 


SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS 

CHAPTER  I 

BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

What  does  the  author  try  to  suggest  by  this  title? 

Let  each  one  of  you  keep  account  of  the  birds,  beasts,  in- 
sects and  flowers  that  you  can  find  in  your  door  yard;  or  on 
your  way  to  school ;  or  on  your  farm ;  or  in  your  park.  With 
each  thing,  put  down  some  description  of  it,  the  date  you  found 
it,  and  what  it  was  doing — and  everything  else  you  discovered 
about  it. 

Page  4. 

The  ten  folk  in  "bare  skins"  are:  one  eel,  three  newts  or 
salamanders,  and  six  frogs.  Those  in  shells  were  one  snail 
and  four  kinds  of  turtles. 


"Wild  Birds  in  City  Parks"  is  by  Herbert  and  Alice  Walter; 
published  by  A.  W.  Mumfort,  Chicago.  It  is  an  excellent  bird 
guide,  price  40  cents  postpaid. 

CHAPTER  II 

THE   CRAZY   FLICKER 

Among  the  flicker's  other  thirty-five  names  are  golden- 
shafted  woodpecker;  clape;  and  yellow-hammer. 

Page  15. 

Flickers  always  have  enormous  families:  they  lay  from  five 
to  nine  eggs,  but  the  young  so  fill  up  the  hole  as  they  grow 
149 


150  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

that  they  stick  out  of  the  doorway  often  for  sheer  lack  of 
room. 

Now  and  then  a  great  amount  of  harm  may  be  done  by  flick- 
ers boring  into  roofs,  ice  houses,  etc.,  but  the  good  they  do  by 
destroying  worms  and  grubs  far  outweighs  their  harm. 

On  page  32  of  "A  Watcher  in  the  Woods"  you  will  read 
how  one  used  to  hammer  on  the  church  during  the  Sunday 
worship  as  if  to  wake  up  the  congregation. 

You  must  hear  the  loud  ringing  cry  of  "Yarup"  over  the 
silent  spring  fields.  Then  later  hide  in  the  bushes  and  watch 
the  love  making  of  a  pair  of  flickers  in  the  top  of  some  neai'-by 
tree.  It  is  very  funny. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   WILD   GEESE 

The  author  has  heard  them  passing  in  the  dead  of  night 
over  the  very  heart  of  Boston,  and  from  the  roof  of  houses 
near  Boston  Common  has  seen  them  many  times  in  the  day 
winging  over  high  above  the  noise  and  smoke  of  the  city. 

Page  26. 

Tropic  Z.one:  the  Canada  geese  do  not  go  farther  south 
for  the  winter  than  the  Gulf  States.  Many  winter  in  the  Caro- 
linas. 

Men  with  guns  are  the  worst  enemies;  but  there  are  many 
others.  Yesterday  at  the  beach  I  picked  up  a  herring  gull  ly- 
ing dead  on  the  sand.  It  had  flown  against  a  ship's  mast  at 
night,  confused  by  the  lantern  in  the  rigging,  and  broken  its 
neck.  So  it  often  happens  to  the  geese. 

Page  32. 

Audubon:  John  James  Audubon,  the  earliest  and  greatest 
of  American  naturalists  and  bird  lovers.  A  short  life  of  him 
is  found  in  "Famous  Men  of  Science"  by  Sarah  K.  Bolton. 


SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS      151 

Page  33. 

"To  a  Waterfowl":  Learn  by  heart  the  whole  beautiful 
poem.  Bryant  was  born  November  3d,  1794,  in  Cummington, 
Mass.,  died  June  12th,  1878,  in  New  York  City.  Learn  also 
his  other  delightful  bird  poem  "Robert  of  Lincoln."  "To  a 
Waterfowl"  was  perhaps  written  at  the  sight  of  a  wild  duck 
flying  over ;  it  serves  as  well  for  the  wild  geese. 

Page  33. 

"Vainly  the  fowler's  eye,"  that  is  the  hunter's  eye,  "might 
mark  thy  flight  to  do  thee  wrong."  On  March  4,  1913,  Con- 
gress passed  a  law  protecting  all  wild  geese,  swans,  ducks, 
snipe,  and  other  migratory  birds,  giving  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  at  Washington  power  to  fix  seasons  over  all  the 
country  when  these  birds  cannot  be  killed.  It  is  one  of  the 
greatest  laws  ever  passed  for  bird  protection. 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  WOOD-PUSSY 

"Wood-pussy"  is  a  polite  "society"  name  for  the  skunk. 
The  skunk  is  found  pretty  generally  all  over  North  America, 
and  is  especially  abundant  near  great  cities  and  towns.  It  is 
about  the  size  of  a  big  heavy  cat,  jet  black  with  a  V-shaped 
white  stripe  dividing  from  the  back  of  the  head  down  over  the 
sides  to  its  haunches.  It  has  a  large  black  and  white  tail.  Its 
fur  is  valuable;  the  boys  about  my  home  get  two  or  three  dol- 
lars a  skin  for  the  best  ones.  They  are  tanned,  dyed  and  re- 
named Alaska  Sable.  But  this  is  a  useful  animal,  especially 
to  the  farmer,  and  must  be  protected  against  the  fur  hunter. 
1,310,185  skunk  skins  were  sold  in  London  in  1911  by  one  fur 
house.  Five  years  more  of  this  fearful  slaughter  and  the 
skunk  will  be  exterminated.  Spare  him ! 

Page  37. 

Casco  Bay  is  on  the  coast  of  Maine.     Where? 


152  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

CHAPTER  V 

A  HOUSE  OP   MAXY  DOORS 

Page  47. 

Fish  Hawk:  osprey,  a  splendid  bird,  one  of  the  few  birds 
of  prey  that  will  build  near  the  homes  of  men  if  unmolested. 
In  Rhode  Island  its  nests  are  sometimes  placed  upon  plat- 
forms at  the  tops  of  tall  poles  erected  for  them  in  door  yards. 
Its  cry  and  flight  when  it  is  fishing  give  a  touch  of  wildness  to 
any  scene. 

Page  47. 

"Crow"  black-bird:  the  purple  grackle;  larger  than  the 
red  shouldered  and  "cow"  black-birds,  but  so  nearly  like  the 
bronzed  grackle  that  only  trained  observers  can  tell  them 
apart.  From  Carolina  downward  and  westward  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley  you  have  the  Florida  Grackle,  and  from  Vir- 
ginia to  Texas  the  boat-tailed  grackle.  The  purple  grackles 
love  city  parks  and  tall  trees  about  old  country  homes  where 
they  nest  in  colonies  as  the  rooks  do  in  England.  You  should 
read  about  them  in  Lowell's  charming  essay  called  "A  Garden 
Acquaintance." 

Page  47. 

The  English  Sparrow:  so  named  because  it  was  introduced 
into  this  country  from  England.  It  is  a  street  gamin,  and  a 
pest.  Outside  of  my  study  window  as  I  write  there  is  a  fight 
on  between  the  sparrows  and  tree-swallows  for  possession  of 
a  bird  house  on  the  barn ;  and  unless  I  take  a  hand  in  the  fight 
the  beautiful,  useful  swallows  will  be  driven  away. 

Page  47. 

City  of  Babel:  look  up  an  account  of  this  famous  city  in 
the  Bible,  the  10th  and  llth  chapters  of  Genesis. 

Page  49. 

Cord-wood:     trees  cut  into  four- foot  lensrths  to  be  cut  later 


SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS      153 

in  sticks  for  a  stove.     A  cord  of  wood  is  four  feet  wide,  four 
feet  high  and  eight  feet  long. 

Page  50. 

Chickadees:  the  little  black-capped,  gray  birds  that  live  all 
winter  with  us  and  are  known  to  every  child  who  goes  into  the 
woods.  They  never  come  into  city  parks  to  stay.  They  are 
wood-birds. 

Page  50. 

Red-headed  woodpeckers:  relatives  of  the  flicker,  a  little 
smaller;  strikingly  colored  black  and  white  and  red.  When 
on  a  tree  the  bird's  red  head,  throat,  neck  and  upper  breast  is 
its  field  mark ;  when  on  the  wing  the  white  of  the  wings  is  the 
mark. 

Page  52. 

Three-Arch  Bocks:  a  wild  bird  reservation  just  off  the 
coast  of  Oregon.  See  the  author's  account  of  it  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  for  March,  1912. 

Page  52. 

Murres  (pronounced  nrnrz)  :  they  look  like  so  many  pen- 
guins about  the  size  of  ducks  crowding  upon  the  rocks. 

Page  52. 

Cormorants,  and  puffins,  and  guillemots,  and  "stormy"  petrels 
and  gulls-:  all  of  these  are  sea  birds;  and  are  dwellers  upon 
the  Rocks.  All  of  these  birds,  or  their  very  near  relatives, 
occur  also  on  the  Atlantic  Coast,  though  here  we  have  no 
northern  coast  reservation  for  them  corresponding  to  Three- 
Arch  Rocks.  The  petrel  of  these  rocks  is  Reading's. 

CHAPTER  VI 

WILD  LIFE   IN  THE   FARM-YARD 

The  especial  object  of  this  chapter  and  Chapter  III  is  to 
show  you  how  many  wild  animal  and  bird  traits,  habits,  etc., 
you  can  readily  see  by  watching  the  domestic  animals — the  hen 


154  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

stealing  her  nest,  the  cat  crouching  in  the  grass,  the  honking 
of  the  geese,  and  the  high  roosting  of  the  turkey. 

Page  58. 

Guineas:  the  wildest  of  domesticated  birds.  It  was 
brought  originally  from  Africa, 

Page  58. 

Hornets'  nest:  the  white  or  bald-faced  hornet  that  builds 
the  big  top-shaped  paper  nests  in  trees.  You  will  often  see 
them  flying  around  the  screen  doors  in  summer  or  about  the 
cows  catching  flies.  They  are  among  our  best  insect  friends. 

Page  58. 

Flying-squirrels:  now  becoming  very  rare.  They  "fly"  by 
leaping  from  some  high  limb  and  stretching  out  their  legs  be- 
tween which  is  a  web  or  "wing"  of  skin.  They  make  excellent 
pets. 

Pags  58. 

Barn  owls :  so  named  because  they  love  to  nest  in  old  barns 
and  towers.  Read  about  them  in  Gilbert  White's  Natural  His- 
tory of  Selborne.  They  kill  great  numbers  of  rats  and  mice, 
but  rarely  or  never  kill  a  bird.  Protect  them  if  there  is  a  pair 
of  them  in  your  neighborhood. 

Page  58. 

Grindstone  apple-tree :  so  named  from  the  shape  and  hard- 
ness of  the  apple.  They  are  long  "keepers." 

Page  58. 

Buzzards:  the  "turkey  buzzard"  so  named  because  it  looks 
very  much  like  a  turkey.  See  the  account  of  them  in  "Wild 
Life  Near  Home." 

Page  63. 

Lynxes:  the  lynx  is  larger  than  the  wild  cat,  but  has  some- 
what similar  habits.  The  one  we  know  best  is  the  Canada 
lynx  or  loupcervier — loo'-saYvya'. 

Page  64. 

Spice  bush:    one  of  the  earliest  of  spring  flowers;  a  bush 


SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS      155 

six  feet  to  twelve  feet  high  with  small  yellow  highly  spiced 
flowers  along  its  branches.  Also  called  Benjamin  bush,  all- 
spice. 

Page  66. 

Roustabouts:  name  given  to  the  deck  hands  and  common 
colored  workmen. 

Page  66. 

Rosin-barrels:  rosin  is  made  of  the  pitch  of  pine  trees,  it 
remains  after  the  turpentine  has  been  distilled  and  taken  off. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A   SONG  OF   THE  WINTER  WOODS 

This  chapter  explains  itself.  Don't  fail  to  take  a  long 
tramp  this  winter,  alone,  if  you  can't  get  some  one  to  go  with 
you,  into  the  woods  and  into  the  teeth  of  some  wild,  fierce 
storm.  When  you  get  home  tiy  to  think  what  makes  the  mem- 
ory of  the  walk  so  full  of  pleasure.  You  may  not  have  seen 
any  animal,  nor  heard  anything  but  the  wild  wind,  yet  you  are 
glad  you  had  the  tramp,  because  of  your  feelings.  What  are 
your  feelings?  Are  they  as  real  and  worth  while  as  facts  and 
observations'? 

Page  79. 

Cubby  Hollow:  a  little  pond  near  Bridgeton  in  New  Jer- 
sey near  where  the  author  lived  as  a  boy. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ON   THE  'POSSUM'S  TRAIL 

The  'possum  or  opossum,  is  a  marsupial  or  "pouched"  ani- 
mal, that  is,  having  a  skin  pouch  like  the  kangaroo  on  the  ab- 
domen in  which  it  carries  its  young.  It  is  the  only  one  of  the 


156  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

marsupial  family  in  North  America  and  is  hence  of  great  in- 
terest to  nature-lovers.  See  the  author's  account  of  the  opos- 
sum's habits  in  "Wild  Life  Near  Home,"  and  of  its  ancestors 
in  his  volume  called  "Winter." 

Page  83. 

Uncle  Jethro  was  an  old  darky  slave  who  ran  away  from  his 
master  before  the  war  and  found  a  home  with  the  author's 
grandfather. 

Page  85. 

Br'er  possum  means  ''Brother  possum." 

Page  89. 

"Being  thrown  into  a  brier-patch,"  is  from  the  story  of  the 
Tar  Baby  in  the  tales  by  Uncle  Remus  by  Joel  Chandler  Har- 
ris. 


Settee:  the  name  for  a  long  settle  with  a  cushion  upon  it 
used  in  old-fashioned  country  homes. 

Page  90. 

Calabash-gourd:  a  large  gourd  the  size  of  one's  head  that 
dries  with  a  hard  horny  shell,  much  used  for  dippers  and  bird 
houses  in  the  country. 

Page  92. 

Lupton's  Pond:  another  pond  near  the  boyhood  home  of 
the  author. 

Page  92. 

Chestnut-oak:  a  large  oak  tree  with  bark  and  leaves  much 
like  the  sweet  chestnut's. 

Page  92. 

Trail:  means  the  tracks  or  scent  left  by  an  animal's  feet 
which  the  dogs  follow. 

Page  92. 

Coon:  a  short  spelling  for  raccoon,  a  wild  animal  of  our 
woods,  belonging  to  the  bear  family.  See  the  author's  story 
of  one  called  Mux  in  "Roof  and  Meadow." 


SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS      157 
CHAPTER  IX 

THE   DANCE    IN    THE   ALDER   SWAMP 

Page  99. 

Alder  swale:  a  low  wet  clump  of  alder  or  patch  of  swampy 
grass  and  bushes. 

Page  99. 

Bed  maples:  "red"  because  just  coming  into  "red"  or,  bet- 
ter, garnet  bloom.  Maples  are  among  the  first  of  our  trees  to 
blossom  and  the  first  of  all  to  scatter  their  ripened  seeds  on  the 
summer  air. 

Page  99. 

Twisting  flight:  a  kind  of  zig-zag,  rapid  and  whirling.  A 
rifle's  barrel  is  "rifled,"  that  is,  bored  with  spiral  grooves  which 
give  a  rotary  motion  to  the  speeding  bullet. 

Page  100. 

Woodcock:  this  interesting  and  valuable  bird  is  doomed 
to  become  extinct,  it  seems.  We  must  do  all  we  can  to  save  it. 

Page  100. 

Tussock  or  hassock:  a  dense  bunch  of  sedge  or  rushes. 

Page  103. 

Indian  teepees:     or  tents  of  the  Indians. 

Page  103. 
Barbecue:     a  whole  roast  ox. 

CHAPTER  X 

CHICKAREE   THE    SCOLD 

Chickaree:  the  common  "red-squirrel,"  so  called  from  its 
cry.  He  is  said  to  destroy  the  eggs  and  young  of  birds, 
though  I  have  never  seen  him  do  it,  and  I  have  a  dozen  nests 
of  Chickaree  here  about  the  house — one  in  the  cellar,  one  in 
the  ice  house,  the  others  in  the  trees. 


158  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

Page  117. 

Pignuts:     the  common  thick-shelled  hickory  nut. 

Page  118. 

Jays:     the  common  blue  jays. 

Page  118. 

Thorn  mountain:  one  of  the  lesser  White  Mountains  look- 
ing down  upon  the  town  of  Jackson,  N.  H. 

Page  118. 

Birch  catkins:     the  fruit  of  the  yellow  birch. 

Page  118. 

Junco:  the  little  slate-colored  "snow  bird"  of  winter.  It 
nests  in  the  White  Mountains  and  northward. 

CHAPTER  XI 

A  LESSON   IN    NATURAL,  HISTORY 

Page  125. 

John  W.  P.  Jenks  was  a  well  known  professor  at  Brown 
University,  a  friend  of  Agassiz,  a  great  naturalist  and  museum- 
maker.  The  author  lived  with  him  in  his  rooms  in  the  Na- 
tural History  Museum  at  Brown  University  for  the  first  three 
years  of  the  author's  college  course. 

Page  125. 

Institute:  The  South  Jersey  Institute  at  Bridgeton,  New 
Jersey,  where  the  author  prepared  for  college — and  for  life 
too,  thanks  to  the  great  teacher  of  the  Institute,  Dr.  H.  K. 
Trask. 

Page  126. 

Linnceus:  a  great  Swedish  botanist — the  father  of  Botany. 
Read  his  life  in  "Famous  Men  of  Science"  by  Sarah  K.  Bol- 
ton. 

Page  126. 

Agassiz  the  great  Swiss  naturalist  of  Harvard  College.  See 
"Famous  Men  of  Science." 


SUGGESTIONS  TO  TEACHER  AND  PUPILS      159 

Page  126. 

John  James  Audubon:     See  note  to  Chapter  II. 

Page  126. 

Gilbert  White:  See  note  to  Chapter  VI  on  barn  owls. 
His  quaint  book  should  be  known  to  you  all. 

Page  126. 

Thoreau:  the  Concord  naturalist,  author  of  "Walden"  and 
other  outdoor  books  which  you  will  read  sometime.  He  was 
born  1817,  died  1872.  Pronounced  Tho  ro. 

Page  126. 

Tarn  Edwards,  an  old  Scotch  naturalist  whose  life  has  been 
written  in  a  book  called  "The  Life  of  a  Scotch  Naturalist"  by 
Samuel  Smiles. 

Page  126. 

Centipedes:  a  poisonous  "worm"  though  not  a  true  worm. 
It  is  one  of  the  arthropoda  (jointed  legged  creatures)  be- 
longing to  the  class  myriapoda  (many  footed)  and  to  the  fam- 
ily chilopoda  (ki  lop  o  da)  so  called  from  its  having  many 
legs.  Centiped  means  hundred  footed,  though  of  course  it  has 
not  so  many  as  that.  It  grows  to  be  nearly  a  foot  long  in 
tropical  countries;  and  its  bite  is  very  painful. 

Page  126. 

Okechobee:  do  you  know  what  the  land  surrounding  this 
lake  is  called,  and  why1? 

Page  126. 

He  had  written  a  book:  the  book  is  called  "A  Popular 
Zoology." 

Page  128. 

A  lesson  in  mounting:  that  is  in  "stuffing"  birds  and 
mounting  them  on  their  perches. 

Page  129. 

Yellow-billed  cuckoo:    the  "rain-crow." 

Page  129. 

Cow-bird:     you   can   tell   them   from   other  black-birds   by 


160  BEYOND  THE  PASTURE  BARS 

their  rusty  brown  color  and  their  habit  of  following  the  cattle 
about  the  pasture  to  feed  on  the  insects — the  only  good  thing 
they  do  apparently. 

Page  131. 

Turtle  dove's  nest:  or  morning  dove's  nest.  You  will  know 
them  by  their  likeness  to  the  pigeon,  and  by  the  strange  win- 
nowing sound  of  their  wings  as  they  fly  overhead. 

Page  131. 

WMppoorwill :  every  child  of  the  country  has  heard  this 
bird  of  the  dark.  See  the  author's  story  of  this  bird  in  "Wild 
Life  Near  Home." 

Page  132. 

Cat  birds'  nest:  the  cat  bird  is  the  slender  long  slate-col- 
ored bird  of  our  summer  thickets;  so  named  because  of  its 
meouw,  which  sounds  like  the  cat. 

CHAPTER  XII 

CALICO   AND   THE   KITTENS 

Calico:  so  named  because  of  her  three  colors.  Three-col- 
ored cats  are  also  called  "tortoise  shell."  It  is  very  interest- 
ing to  note  that  most  three-colored  cats  are  females. 

Note :  We  have  read  a  great  deal  lately  about  wild  mothers 
teaching  their  young  to  fly  and  swim  and  hunt  and  fight,  but 
this  story  of  Calico,  which  is  true  in  all  its  essential  points, 
would  show  that  young  squirrels  need  such  parental  instruction 
about  as  much  as  young  human  babies  need  their  parents  to 
teach  them  how  to  cry. 


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